Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Lancashire and Yorkshire and London and North Western Railway Companies Bill (by Order),

Second Reading deferred till Wednesday, 19th March.

Reigate Corporation Bill (by Order),

Second Reading deferred till Wednesday next.

DOCK AND HARBOUR BILLS.

Resolution of the House of the 20th February relative to Dock and Harbour Bills, which was ordered to be communicated to the Lords, and the Lords Message of the 27th February, signifying their concurrence in the said Resolution, read.

Ordered, That the Blyth Harbour Bill, the Bristol Corporation Bill, the Dublin Port and Docks Bill, the Manchester Ship Canal Bill, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Bill, the Newport Harbour Commissioners Bill, the Swansea Harbour Bill, the Tees Conservancy Bill, the Tyne Improvement Bill, the Wear Navigation and Sunderland Dock Bill be committed to a Select Committee of Four Members nominated by the Committee of Selection to be joined by a Committee of Four Lords.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

Ordered, That all Petitions in favour of or against the Bills, presented before Tuesday, the 25th March, be referred to the Committee; that the Petitioners praying to be heard by themselves, their Counsel, or Agents, be heard in favour of or against the Bills, and Counsel heard in support of the Bills.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Ordered, That the Belfast Harbour Bill, the Cork Harbour Bill, and the Dover Harbour Bill be committed to the Joint Committee on Dock and Harbour Bills.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1919–20.

Estimates presented for the year 1919–20, including Vote on Account [by Command], and to be printed [No. 37]; Vote A referred to the Committee of Supply; Vote on Account and remaining Votes referred to a Standing Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

GOVERNMENT HEADQUARTERS.

Colonel YATE: 1.
asked the Secretary for India if he will state what steps are being taken by the Government of India to prevent the overcrowding of Simla and other Government headquarters in the Hills by unofficials, both British and Indian, and to reserve the accommodation at those places for civil and military officials, and their wives and families?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): I have been asked to reply to this question. The Government of India have recently had the whole question of house accommodation at Simla examined by a Committee, and propose to prepare a comprehensive scheme for the provision of accommodation for officials. In the meantime, in order to meet immediate necessities, they have expended considerable sums on the acquisition and construction of houses. The Secretary of State is not aware that Local Governments have found it necessary to take similar action in the hill stations within their jurisdiction.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS.

Sir J. D. REES: 65.
asked the Lord Privy Seal whether the Government proposes to constitute a Select Committee of the House of Commons on Indian affairs, as recommended in the Report on Indian. Constitutional Reforms by the Secretary of State and the Governor General of India; if the answer be in the affirmative, when such action will be taken; and whether any objection exists to taking such action now or, at any rate, early in the present Session?

Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): His Majesty's Government have under their consideration the recommendation to which the hon. Member
refers, along with the other recommendations of the Report, and I think it can best be dealt with as part of the general scheme.

MUTINY VETERANS.

Captain REDMOND: 68.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware that, owing to the increased cost of living, large numbers of Irish soldiers who served in the Indian Mutiny have been reduced to a condition of acute distress; and whether he will consider the advisability of granting some increase of pensions to the Indian Mutiny veterans?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Churchill): I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply given on the 13th February to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar South, and to the reply given on 20th February, by my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury, to a question by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Southport, to the effect that His Majesty's Government cannot undertake to increase these pensions.

Captain REDMOND: Is it not the fact that the purchasing capacity of the amount of pension allotted to these soldiers at the time has considerably decreased, and would it not be proper and fair that the amount should be brought up to meet modern requirements?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I should be glad if the hon. and gallant Member would give me particulars of any of these cases he has in mind. The number cannot be very large as those in this class must be over the age of 83. If he does so I will look into the matter, but I can hold out no promise of an increased pension.

Captain REDMOND: In view of the fact stated by the right hon. Gentleman that the number cannot be very large, surely it is not a very large consideration for the Government to take into account.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

GRAND FLEET COMMITTEES.

Commander Viscount CURZON: 2.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if all the evidence taken before the Grand Fleet Committees A and B on the pay and circumstances of the officers and men of the
Royal Navy and Royal Marines can be published for the information of the House and in time to allow of ample consideration before the Navy Votes are taken?

The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Long): There is nothing confidential about this evidence, but if it be published the evidence of the 240witnesses examined at the home ports by the Jerram Committee should also be published. The evidence would fill a Blue Book of considerable bulk, and, in the opinion of the Admiralty, the labour and expense involved would not be justified. It could not, in any case, be published by the time the Navy Estimates are introduced.

QUEEN ALEXANDRA'S NAVAL NURSING SERVICE.

Major WHELER: 3.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will favourably consider some increase in salary to the nursing sisters of Queen Alexandra's Naval Nursing Service?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): A scheme for improvement of salary of the nursing sisters is now being considered by the Admiralty. I hope that an announcement may be made at an early date.

Major WHELER: May we take it that the announcement will be made at an early date?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I will do my best to hasten it on.

ANTWERP NAVAL DIVISION (COURT OF INQUIRY).

Commander BELLAIRS: 5.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Court of Inquiry on the loss of forces belonging to the British naval battalions retreating fom Antwerp in 1914 has sent in its Report; whether the terms of reference and the finding can now be given; and whether, in the event of a public court-martial not being held and in view of the public interest in the matter, the Admiralty are prepared to deviate from the secrecy which is the rule in regard to Courts of Inquiry by publishing the whole of the proceedings?

Mr. LONG: The Court of Inquiry has reported, and the Report is now being considered. The Court was directed to investigate the circumstances in which the
First Royal Naval Brigade came to be interned in Holland in October, 1914. It is not possible to disclose the finding or to publish the proceedings.

Commander BELLAIRS: 6.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Court of Inquiry which has just been held on the losses in the retreat from Antwerp was instructed to take into full consideration the responsibility of those who sent newly-formed forces in an untrained and unequipped state to face fully-trained German armies; and whether the present Secretary of State for War and the present Under-Secretary of State for the Air Ministry gave evidence before the Court?

Mr. LONG: The Court of Inquiry, as I have just said, was directed to investigate the circumstances in which the First Royal Naval Brigade came to be interned in Holland in October, 1914; the Under-Secretary of State for the Air Ministry gave evidence before the Court, but not the Secretary of State for War.

Commander BELLAIRS: Was not the evidence of the Secretary for War of great importance to the Court in view of the part he played in the matter?

Mr. LONG: I imagine that was a matter for the Court to decide. Certainly it was not a question for me.

DOCKYARD ESTABLISHMENT REGULATIONS.

Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKE: 7.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that men who have served as many as fifteen years in His Majesty's dockyards and have taken part in the War, some being in the retreat from Mons in 1914, on returning to their former employment have found that young men who were serving as apprentices under them in 1914 have been placed on the establishment; whether he can see his way to give preference as regards establishment to men whose employment in the yards is of long standing and who have long war service to their credit; and will he specially consider in this respect the case of men who have been discharged as no longer fit for military service?

Dr. MACNAMARA: We shall certainly take service with the Colours as service to be taken into account in considering any man's claim to establishment. This
of course applies to men resuming service in the dockyards after having been discharged from the Army or Navy as no longer fit for military service.

NAVAL PRIZE MONEY.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: 8.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the very great increase in the cost of living, he can now see his way to make some advance of naval prize money to those entitled to receive it?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I explained to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North last Wednesday that no payment, ad interim or final, can be made until the records of individual service, which will determine eligibility and the amount to be received, are complete. Those records, of course, deal with service down to the 11th of last November. I explained, further, that the Department concerned is making every effort to expedite and complete this work. We are working to have the records complete by the time that the Courts and the tribunal may be expected to have completed their labours. As I said, this we hope will be in the autumn.
I should now add that if by that time the Courts and the tribunal have not finished their labours, our records being then complete, it will be a question for the serious consideration of the Board whether in that case an ad interim payment ought not then to be made.

DOCKYARD CHARGEMEN.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: 9.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if the Government have yet come to a decision as to whether chargemen employed in His Majesty's dockyards are to come within the classes to be compulsorily insured, and for whom a portion of the contributions are payable by the employer?

Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes, Sir. It has been decided that chargemen employed in His Majesty's dockyards are to be regarded as compulsorily insurable, and instructions to this effect have now been issued.

NAVAL WAR LOSSES.

Commander Viscount CURZON: 10.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if the statement of the naval losses of the various Powers which appeared on 3rd March may be taken to be correct; and, if
so, if the details of the British naval losses can be furnished for the information of the House?

Dr. MACNAMARA: The figures to which the Noble Lord refers do not correctly give the British naval losses. A complete list of those losses will be published shortly.

NAVAL PAY (JERRAM INQUIRY).

Colonel YATE: 11.
asked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Committee under Admiral Sir Martyn Jerram is to hold an inquiry into the pay and conditions of service of officers of the Royal Navy as well as into those of the men, or whether a separate inquiry is to be made in the case of the officers; and, if so, by whom and when the inquiry is to commence?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I explained to my hon. Friend the Member for Devonport on Wednesday last that the question of officers' pay will be dealt with by the Committee under Admiral Sir Martyn Jerram. I went on to explain that, in view of the pressure of work upon that Committee, the Board had decided to appoint another Committee working in close liaison with Admiral Jerram's Committee, to consider solely questions relating to the pay, etc., of officers. This Committee will work under Admiral Jerram and will report through him. It will commence its work at once.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will this Committee also consider the admission into the Navy of officers from all classes of the community, or is the present system of restricted entry to be maintained?

Dr. MACNAMARA: That is not in this reference, and I cannot imagine that the Committee will inquire into it.

Viscount CURZON: In view of the answer to this question, as well as to the one I put a few minutes ago, and in view also of the fact that the Committee has already reported, would it be possible for hon. Members to see the evidence given before it.

Dr. MACNAMARA: The question of my Noble Friend dealt with the question of the pay of officers, while this has reference to the men's pay. I am afraid I cannot add to the answer I gave to the Noble Lord.

NAVAL RATINGS (PENSIONS).

Colonel YATE: 12.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the pensions of naval ratings have been paid from 4th August, 1914, as they became due, although the men were kept on in the Service; and, if so, was the same rule applied to the officers?

Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes, Sir. As regards the second part of the question the Regulations do not admit of retired pay being paid to Naval and Marine officers concurrently with full pay.

Colonel YATE: Why is there that differentiation between the payment of officers and men?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I am afraid I cannot argue that by way of answer to a question.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEMOBILISATION.

ROYAL DOCKYARD APPRENTICES.

Major Sir BERTRAM FALLE: 4.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he can make any arrangement for the early demobilisation of apprentices of His Majesty's dockyard; and if he can make any statement as to the position of these men on returning to the dockyard?

Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not think I can do better than to refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave on Wednesday last to my hon. Friend the Member for the Drake Division. I may repeat that these young men on returning to the dockyard will be credited with the time served in the forces as time served at their trades, and will be given an opportunity to complete their training as tradesmen whilst drawing tradesmen's wages if the term of the apprenticeship has elapsed whilst they have been serving in the Forces.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a good deal of dissatisfaction in the dockyards on this question and is it not the policy of the Admiralty to do all it can to allay that dissatisfaction. Will he, therefore, reconsider this matter?

Sir B. FALLE: Does the answer apply to apprentices who went out in 1914?

Dr. MACNAMARA: Certainly. In reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Ply-
mouth I do not think it is the action of the Admiralty which is causing dissatisfaction, but rather that of the Army Council—the demobilising authority.

Sir ARTHUR BENN: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that this action is in accordance with the promise given in 1914 to these apprentices when enlisted? Can he not make some other arrangement?

Dr. MACNAMARA: So far as I know it does carry out the promise.

DENTAL OFFICERS (GRATUITY).

Major EDWARD WOOD: 30.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that dental officers receive no gratuity on demobilisation corresponding to that granted to medical officers; and, if so, whether he can revise the Regulations under which such gratuities are withheld?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the written answer given to a similar question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest and Christchurch on Monday last, to the effect that a gratuity of £50 for each year or part of a year has been approved for these officers as a special concession.

IRISH SOLDIERS.

Captain REDMOND: 33.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that dissatisfaction exists amongst the Irish soldiers who joined up for the period of the War at the delay in releasing them from military service, and that this dissatisfaction is intensified by the fact that they consider they are discriminated against in this matter of release from military service because of their nationality; and whether in view of all the circumstances he will take steps to see that equal justice in the matter of release is dealt out to Irish soldiers as compared, with soldiers of other nationalities in the Army?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not aware that any dissatisfaction exists amongst Irish soldiers and I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that they are being treated on exactly the same footing as other soldiers, and that no discrimination whatever is made.

ARMY ORDER 14, 1917.

Mr. RENDALL: 34.
asked the Secretary of State for War why Private G. J. Webb,
No. 174486, 315 (H.S.) Works Company, Old Bell Inn, Exeter Street, Salisbury, has not been discharged; whether he enlisted on 15th November, 1916, being then and prior to 1914 owner of a one-man plumbing business at Kingswood, Bristol; whether certificate (D.F. 2B) signed by Ministry of Labour and Local Advisory Committee, Bristol, dated 15th January, 1919, was forwarded to the proper authority on 18th January, 1919, through his commanding officer; whether he is entitled to his release under Army Order 14 of 1917, Chap. 3, Sec. 7, under which men whose special release has been recommended to the War Office by the Ministry of Labour before 1st February, 1919, should be discharged by the War Office on Army Form Z 56; and why, as a civilian plumber has just been substituted to do his work, he is detained, having regard to Chap. 3, Sec. (c)?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am informed that Private G. J. Webb is not registered either as pivotal or for special release on Army Form Z 56, and from the information given in my hon. Friend's question he would not appear to be eligible for demobilisation under Army Order 55, of 1919, unless he is over thirty-seven years of age or is entitled to wear three or more wound stripes. I am having some further inquiry made into the case.

TROOPS SERVING IN INDIA.

Major MALONE: 37.
asked whether the men now serving in the Army in India will be granted the same facilities for demobilising as are given to men serving elsewhere?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the statement regarding Territorials in India which I made in the House on the 25th February last. The statement applied to all British troops serving in India.

Major MALONE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that very wide discontent prevails among the men serving in India in consequence of this inequality of facilities for demobilising? If he wishes for confirmation of that, I have it in my possession.

Mr. CHURCHILL: The latest information we have is that there has been a great abatement of any discontent that existed, and that a considerable movement in favour of re-engagement in the Army is taking place among the troops serving in India?

RETENTION OF RANK.

Major O'NEILL: 39.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether officers not of the Regular Army who are given an honorary rank on demobilisation are entitled to use the designation of that rank as a prefix to their names in civilian life; in what circumstances such officers will have the privilege of appearing in uniform; and whether in future they will be required to wear full-dress or Service uniform on ceremonial occasions?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The rank given on demobilisation is not honorary. Permission is granted to the officer to retain the rank he has held. He is entitled to use the designation of the rank as a prefix to his name in civil life. He may wear uniform when attending ceremonials and entertainments of a military nature, if he so desires. The uniform to be worn is restricted to Service dress.

Major O'NEILL: Is it the desire of the Army Council that the military designation shall be retained in all cases in civil life?

Mr. CHURCHILL: It is for individuals to decide what they call themselves; the Government say what they are entitled to call themselves.

CHAPLAINS, CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.

Colonel BURN: 40.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he will consider the immediate release of those chaplains of the Church of Scotland who are at present serving in the Army in capacities other than as ministers of religion?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I would refer to the answers given to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Midlothian and Peebles on Monday last, and to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Rollox yesterday, to the effect that they will be released if they are eligible for demobilisation under existing Regulations.

Sir HENRY CRAIK: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the proportion of clergymen of the Church of Scotland serving in combatant ranks is very much larger than that of clergymen of the Church of England, and that therefore the pressure upon the Church of Scotland is so much greater?

Mr. CHURCHILL: That is so. It is a point of substance that should be considered. I do not, however, wish to make
exceptions at the present time, as we are enforcing new rules and new standards of universal evenness over the whole Army.

COAL MINERS.

Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMS: 67.
asked the Secretary of State for War how far Army Order 55, of 1919, as to the classes of soldiers entitled to demobilisation affects coal miners; whether the promise that coal miners should be demobilised stands; and, if not, can he state the reasons?

Mr. CHURCHILL: It is provided by Army Council Instruction 69 of the 30th January, 1919, which must be read in conjunction with Army Order 55 of 1919, that a large percentage of each dispersal draft will be composed of coal miners (Group 3) and agriculturists (Group 1), preference being given to coal miners so long as any are available. This procedure is subject of course to the officer or man in question being eligible for demobilisation under Army Order 55. One hundred and ninety-five thousand miners have already been demobilised, and as far as I am aware the number remaining in the Army is very small. I will send my hon. Friend a copy of the instructions referred to. The reasons which have led to this exceptional advantage being given to coal miners over all the rest of the Army was to enable them to get the industries of the country restarted in time to make employment for their comrades at the front.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is it not the fact that on the 13th January the Government caused public notices to be issued that the coal miners and certain other classes need do nothing to secure their release as their release had already been ordered, and that they were being included in the dispersal drafts as quickly as possible?

Mr. CHURCHILL: That is true, and as the result, 195,000 coal miners have been released.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is it not the fact that many coal miners relying upon that promise did nothing, as they were instructed to do, and that they now find they are not allowed to leave the Army?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir. The Order to comb out coal miners still continues in full force, but no class who have served in the Army have been treated with more special consideration.

An HON. MEMBER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that young miners who enlisted voluntarily in 1914 are still retained in the Army, while miners who enlisted in 1916 have returned to their homes, and will he pay attention to the release of those miners who voluntarily enlisted in 1914?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am very doubtful whether that is the case. It may be so in some exceptional cases, because out of millions of cases there must be every kind of exception, but that is not due to any rule or principle which we are observing or enforcing.

WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir F. HALL: 61.
asked the Prime Minister what is the amount of the gratuity or allowance paid on demobilisation to members of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps who have served overseas; what is the amount of the allowance paid to women munition workers who cease to be employed owing to the conclusion of hostilities; and if he will state on what grounds it has been decided to deal on a more generous scale with the latter than with the women who have taken an active part in the War at personal risk and with much less financial benefit to themselves?

Sir R. HORNE: I have been asked to reply to this question. The hon. and gallant Member would appear to be under a misapprehension. Members of the Q.M.A.A.C. (other than officials) who have served overseas, are entitled on discharge to twenty-eight days' pay and allowances, and are eligible for out-of-work donation at the full rate for twenty-six weeks as against the usual thirteen weeks ordinarily applicable to women munition workers. I am not aware that apart from the out-of-work donation women munition workers are entitled to any special allowance on discharge except the week's pay in lieu of notice for which the Munitions of War Acts provide.

RE-ESTABLISHMENT IN BUSINESS.

Mr. HOGGE: 14.
asked the Minister of Labour what provisions the Government have made for assisting discharged and demobilised officers and men for rehabilitating them in businesses ruined on account of their service; whether applications can now be made; and, if so, to whom and where?

Sir R. HORNE: I may refer the hon. Member to the reply which was given to the hon. Member for West Bermondsey on the 13th February, as to the general scope of the provision to be made for assisting officers and men in the circumstances mentioned in the question. The Regulations governing the scheme have now been approved, and the final arrangements for bringing the scheme into operation are being made as rapidly as possible and will, I hope, be published very shortly. The Military Service (Civil Liabilities) Department are giving consideration to any communication on the matter which may be addressed to them.

Mr. HOGGE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is the kind of answer we have had to this question for the last four weeks; and can he say definitely that the Civil Liabilities Committee are now prepared to receive an application from a demobilised officer or man asking for financial assistance in re-establishing himself in the business which has been ruined on account of his joining the Colours?

Sir R. HORNE: Yes, Sir. I would remind my hon. Friend that the Civil Liabilities Committee has only been newly taken over by the Ministry of Labour, but now I can assure him that we shall be ready to receive applications as soon as they like to make them.

Captain REDMOND: Does this proposed scheme apply to Ireland?

Sir R. HORNE: Yes; it applies so far as I understand, to the whole of the United Kingdom.

Mr. ROWLANDS: Has any scheme been submitted to the Advisory Committee of the Civil Liabilities or is any scheme to be submitted to them?

Sir R. HORNE: A new scheme has been devised. Regulations have been newly made which I understand have been before the Civil Liabilities Committee.

GERMAN PRISONERS (EMPLOYMENT).

Mr. F. ROBERTS: 42.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he was aware that between 400 and 500 German prisoners are being employed on the manufacture of cement blocks at Chepstow; that the making of these blocks is plasterers' work, a large number of whom are at present unemployed; and whether,
in view of this, he will take steps to have these German, prisoners removed from this work so that civilian plasterers may find employment?

Sir R. HORNE: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question, and I am accordingly having inquiries made into the matter, and as soon as these are complete I will communicate with my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL.

SURFACE AND UNDERGROUND WORKERS.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: 15.
asked the Minister of Labour what are the approximate numbers of men employed in the coalmining industry, how many of these actually work underground, and how many are surface workers; and whether the recent demands made by the miners for shorter hours and increased pay apply to surface workers equally with underground workers?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. Bridgeman): I have been asked to reply to this question. The approximate number of persons employed at coal mines in the United Kingdom on the first day of last month was 848,100 underground and 216,600 on the surface. The demand for shorter hours of work and increased rates of pay applies to both classes of workers.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA.

DON COSSACKS AND VOLUNTEER ARMY.

Lieutenant-Colonel MALONE: 16.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Allies are now supporting the Volunteer Army under General Denikin in the south of Russia; whether this force is in favour of the restoration of the monarchy; and whether, seeing that the Don Cossacks are fighting both the Volunteer Army and the Bolsheviks in this region, he will consider the desirability, if assistance is given to any force, of supporting the Don Cossacks, who are now being estranged into Bolshevism by our action in supporting the Monarchists?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative,
and to the second part in the negative. It is not the case that the Don Cossacks are fighting the Volunteer Army. Since the appointment of General Bogaievski, Ataman of the Don Cossacks in succession to General Krasnov, most cordial relations have been established between the Don Cossacks and the Volunteer Army, and both parties are acting in co-operation against the Bolsheviks.

Lieutenant-Colonel MALONE: Can the hon. Gentleman say when the Don Cossacks established relations with the Voluntary Army?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I must ask for notice of that question.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is that part of the question which asks whether this force is in favour of the restoration of the monarchy correct, and are we now fighting for the restoration of the monarchy. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] May I ask for an answer to that question. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!".]

UKRAINE.

Lieutenant-Colonel MALONE: 37.
asked the Secretary of State foe Foreign Affairs whether, in the Ukraine, the British Government are supporting the Petlura or the Ataman of the Ukraine; whether their war aims are identical; and, if so, on what policy the British Government decides to whom its support should be accredited?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: As regards the first and third parts of the hon. and gallant Member's question, no negotiations have been entered into by His Majesty's Government with any authorities in the Ukraine, nor have they decided to support any particular party in that territory.
As regards the war aims of General Petlura, it is understood that he is aiming at the establishment of an independent Ukraine. General Skoropadski, the Hetman of the Ukraine, fled from Kiev last November, and is not at present in Russia.

Lieutenant-Colonel MALONE: Will a comprehensive statement of our policy in Russia be supplied to the House at an early date?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: That is a question which should be addressed to the Leader of the House.

EGYPT (ENGLISH LANGUAGE).

Major HURST: 18.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether a resolution from the principal business houses of Port Said, Egypt, has been transmitted to him by the High Commissioner of Egypt; whether this resolution emphasises the necessity of the use of the English language and the adoption of English law and procedure in the Courts, particularly in criminal matters; whether any reply has been sent; and what action it is proposed to take?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: The answer to the first and second part of the hon. and gallant Member's question is in the affirmative, subject to the reservation that the form of the communication in question was that of a letter expressing agreement with a memorial previously addressed to Sir R. Wingate by British lawyers in Egypt; it consequently required no special reply. The views put forward by the British lawyers, and supported by the British business houses were communicated at the time to the Commission sitting at Cairo, which is charged with the preparation of the proposed new judicial organisation, and is receiving careful consideration by the Advisory Committee in this country as well as by the Foreign Office.

Major HURST: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the indignation that is felt among business classes, both in Egypt and in England, at the proposed exclusion of the English language and English law from the Egyptian Courts?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: Yes, Sir, I am fully aware of that. I have received a deputation on the subject quite recently.

Mr. G. TERRELL: When are we likely to have the Report of the Commission which is considering the matter?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I will inquire.

MONTENEGRO.

19. Mr. RONALD McNEILL: 19.
asked the Secretary of State for' Foreign Affairs whether a Commission, under the presidency of General d'Esperey, has been, appointed by the Allied and Associated Powers to inquire on the spot as to events that have occurred in Montenegro since November, 1918; if so, under what circumstances was it appointed; what
nationalities were represented on the Commission; what persons was it composed of; what was the method of inquiry; have the Commission issued their Report; if so, on what evidence was it based; and was the Commission appointed after consultation with the Montenegrin Government and with its approval?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: My hon. Friend is no doubt referring to a statement which appeared in the Press of 3rd March. I am unaware of the appointment of any such Commission as is suggested, but I am making inquiries of His Majesty's Chargé des Affaires for Montenegro.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: What is the Montenegrin Government which is referred to in the last part of the question; has not Montenegro decided to join Serbia?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I am afraid that I must have notice of that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

DISCHARGE PAPERS.

Mr. ROWLANDS: 13.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that John Walker Jones, C.P.O., R.N., No. 116929, in August last was sent home from hospital, and was informed that his discharge papers would be sent to him; that they have not been sent, although he has written to the Accountant-General of the Navy, and his wife has called; that they have again been promised, but no discharge papers have arrived; is he further aware that for the want of these papers Jones is prevented from making his claim to the local pensions committee; and, as the delay is causing serious inconvenience, will he see that the papers are sent on at once?

Dr. MACNAMARA: This chief petty officer was lent to the Air Force and was apparently surveyed by a medical officer of that service. I am afraid this transfer to another Department is responsible for the delay. I have gone into the question of the application made by his wife and have seen the accountant officer of His Majesty's Ship "President," upon whom Mrs. Jones called. I am satisfied that he
did everything possible to hasten a decision. It may be necessary for our own medical authorities to survey Jones—if so, this will be done at once—and all relevant communications made forthwith to the Pensions Ministry. Meantime Jones will, from the date he ceased pay, resume pay from Naval funds pending a determination of his case. In fact a sum of money has already been sent to him.

Mr. ROWLANDS: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman do something, seeing that this matter has been hanging about since August; and is it not possible for the Accountant-General to deal more speedily with his correspondence than he does?

Dr. MACNAMARA: It is not entirely a matter for the Accountant-General, but also one for the Admiralty, the Air Force, to which he was lent, and the Pensions Ministry. We put him on Naval pay, and we have proceeded with all expedition, and in order to prevent too great hardship we have sent him a sum of money at once.

Mr. ROWLANDS: In all cases the de-delay is very great.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I am sorry for that.

WAR GRATUITIES.

Colonel YATE: 24.
asked the Secretary of State for War when the proscribed Army form will be issued upon which applications for the war gratuity can be submitted by the officers concerned?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The reference is presumably to Army Form W. 5081, on which the war gratuity for Regular officers is claimed. These forms have already been issued to the Army agents and paymasters concerned. I may remind my hon. and gallant Friend that, except in the case of officers who have died or left the Army, this gratuity to regular officers is not issuable until the termination of the War or the 3rd of August next, whichever occurs first.

Colonel YATE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when these forms were issued to the Army agents?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No, not without notice.

QUARTERMASTERS (TERRITORIAL FORCE).

Lieutenant-Colonel BUCKLEY: 27.
asked the Secretary of State for War if his
attention has been drawn to the position as regards pensions of those quartermasters of the Territorial Force who had previous service with the Regular Army and who, on demobilisation, will be compelled to retire on their pre-war pensions as non-commissioned officers; and whether, in view of the services rendered by these officers, he will consider the advisability of placing them on the same footing as regards pensions as quartermasters of the Regular Army?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I understand the hon. and gallant Member to suggest that these Territorial officers should be granted Service pensions as officers. Such pensions are given only to officers holding Regular commissions; and I do not think that the fact that these Territorial officers have already a non-commissioned officer's pension calls for an exception to that rule.

MILITARY SERVICE.

ROYAL AIR FORCE (W. G. JONES).

Mr. HAYDN JONES: 29.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of William G. Jones, 194026, Royal Air Force, who, on joining on the 7th June, 1918, was classified A 1, and on being demobilised on the 28th January was placed in Grade 1 after the following record: 17th July, placed in a draft for France, but found unfit for service overseas owing to D.A.H. and nervous debility; sent to Uxbridge for a course of aerial gunnery, found unfit, excused drills and marches, and declared unfit for all military duty; 30th September, sent to the Royal Herbert Hospital, Woolwich, and marked for immediate discharge; 12th October, transferred to 1st Eastern General Hospital, Cambridge, where he was examined by a specialist, and his discharge papers prepared; 22nd October, sent to Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital, Wisbech, to be examined by a medical board 4th November, sent home without examination; 21st November, recalled for examination, but informed on arrival that as one of his papers was missing he could not be examined; 23rd November, sent home; 13th January, recalled to Cambridge for re-examination, but sent to East Preston Hospital without being examined; 20th January, examined by two officers, who declared the soldier's nerves to be bad; sent to Chester War
Hospital, where he was placed in Grade 1 and demobilised on the 28th January; whether he is aware that the soldier was not allowed his ordinary pay while at home; and whether, in view of this record, he will cause the soldier to be re-examined by a medical board in order that he may be placed in his proper category?

Mr. PRATT (Lord of the Treasury): I am causing full inquiry to be made into this case and will acquaint my hon. Friend with the results at an early date.

LANCASHIRE COTTON TRADE.

Mr. SUGDEN: 20.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether, in view of the serious and uncertain nature of the markets abroad of the Lancashire cotton-spinning and weaving trade obtaining since the Armistice was signed, he will take steps to obtain a Report as to the possibility of opening new markets abroad, of the solution of exchange values, and of the proper support to establish a reasonable and full supply of raw cotton at such price as will enable the Lancashire cotton trade to compete in the Eastern markets?

Sir ARTHUR STEEL-MAITLAND (Department of Overseas Trade): It is one of the main duties of Commercial Attachés and Trade Commissioners to report on the possibility of new and extended markets for British goods, including, of course, textiles. As regards the Far East, the situation is full of anxiety, and the dispatch of a special mission to investigate the condition is at present under the consideration of the Department, which is in communication with the trade. No Report can suggest any general solution of exchange values. The problems of exchange differ in different localities, but they are, of course, taken into consideration where they occur. I am not aware that there is any prospect of a shortage of American cotton for Lancashire mills, while as regards Egyptian cotton His Majesty's Government have already taken the necessary steps to secure supplies.

Mr. SUGDEN: Could a Report be furnished as to whether it is not a fact that
the American cotton planters are exploiting the prices of raw cotton to the detriment of the Lancashire cotton spinners?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The hon. Member must put down a question about it.

EMIGRATION (DISCHARGED SOLDIERS).

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: 21.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now in a position to state the Government policy with regard to emigration; will he say when it will be possible for discharged soldiers and their wives and families desiring to emigrate to Canada and Australia to carry out their plans; will he say whether the Government propose to give any financial assistance; and, if so, in what way will that assistance be given?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Lieutenant-Colonel Amery): His Majesty's Government have under their consideration the whole question of the grant of State aid to ex-Service men desirous of settling within the Empire. I hope shortly to be in a position to make a statement upon the subject.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is any Committee sitting to consider the question?

Lieutenant-Colonel AMERY: Yes; a Committee has been sitting on the subject and has made definite proposals which are under the consideration of His Majesty's Government.

Major WOOD: When does my hon. and gallant Friend hope to be able to make a statement—he told me a fortnight ago that he would do so shortly?

Lieutenant-Colonel AMERY: I hope it will be still more shortly.

UGANDA RAILWAY (NATIVES OF INDIA).

Mr. SPOOR: 22.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that natives of the country, however wealthy, clothed, or educated, are not allowed to travel first or second-class on the Uganda Government Railway; whether this applies also to natives of India; whether any order or regulation to
this effect has been approved by the Colonial Office or has been made known to it and not disapproved; and, if so, what action he proposes to take in the matter?

Lieutenant-Colonel AMERY: I understand that directions were given in 1914 for second-class accommodation to be reserved for Indian travellers on at least one train a week each way. On other points I have no information, but inquiry will be made of the Governor.

Mr. SPOOR: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman issue instructions that this absurd colour discrimination should immediately cease?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Was the India Office consulted as to this interference with the liberty of Indians to travel on any trains?

Lieutenant-Colonel AMERY: I shall have to ask for notice of that question, but my recollection is that second and first-class accommodation on the Uganda railway some years ago was absolutely identical.

AMERICAN LOCOMOTIVES (MALAY).

Sir RICHARD COOPER: 23.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if an order for locomotives for the Federated Malay States has been placed in the United States; what is the total value of the order; what was the lowest British tender; and why this order was not secured to Great Britain?

Lieutenant-Colonel AMERY: An order for twelve locomotives for the Federated Malay States was placed in the United States of America in January last; the contract sum was $28,450 each, or £71,723 approximately in all. No British firm quoted a firm price. The lowest offer mentioned, £8,600 each, or £103,200 in all as a probable sum, but was on a time and cost basis, and therefore liable to variation. This order was not secured to Great Britain, because early delivery of the engines was of urgent necessity, and British firms could not begin delivery till November next, and could not definitely promise that; whereas, the American firm promised delivery in six months.

Sir R. COOPER: Is it not a fact that British contractors who sent in tenders for these locomotives were at a disadvan-
tage as against American firms, because of the restrictions which are imposed on producers in this country at present?

Lieutenant-Colonel AMERY: That will be borne in mind.

ARMY HORSES.

Lieutenant-Colonel RAYMOND GREENE: 25.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can give the number of Army horses to be disposed of in France, Italy, Belgium, and the East, respectively; whether they are to be sold by public auction to the highest bidder; and whether any precautions will be taken to ensure as far as possible that these horses will be humanely treated by their new owners?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The number of surplus animals still to be disposed of in the various theatres of war are in round figures as follows:

Horses.
Mules.


France and Belgium
100,000
50,000


Italy
4,000
1,000


Salonika
7,000
35,000


Egypt
14,000
12,000

Mesopotamia; 60,000 animals are surplus at present, but it is not known exactly how many of those will return to India. The animals it is decided to sell will be sold by public auction to the highest bidder, subject to a substantial reserve price. As regards the last part of my hon. and gallant Friend's question, I would refer him to the answer given to a question by the hon. and gallant Member for Rye on the 25th February. To the reports from Italy, Egypt, and Mesopotamia already circulated I can now add a further report regarding the measures taken in France and Belgium to ensure proper treatment which has since been received. I will have it circulated with the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The following is the Report referred to:

FRANCE AND BELGIUM.

At the time of sale each buyer signs a certificate, which is handed over to the British authorities, that—

(a) He is in a position to feed adequately and care for the animals purchased by him,

(b) That all animals shall be open to inspection from time to time.

The certificate contains sufficient particulars to enable the animal to be traced.

A reserve price, not below butchery price, is fixed. No really old animal is sold. The fact that an average price of some £40 is being paid is in itself a guarantee that the purchasers will set sufficient value on the animals not to ill-use them. The need for animals in France and Belgium for the purpose of cultivating the land is very urgent.

In the event of sales in districts badly provided with forage, the necessary amount of this, varying with the needs of the situation, is handed over, against cash payment, with the animals in order that temporary hardship may be prevented.

Colonel C. LOWTHER: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to Question 28, which shows the specific need of the agricultural industry for horses in this country, and could not many of these horses, especially from France, be brought over to England and sold to British farmers who would treat them humanely? Is it not a notorious fact?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon and gallant Gentleman has already asked three supplementary questions.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I will deal with some of those questions when we get to 28.

Major BARNES: 28.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he will extend the facilities for obtaining horses which have been granted to the agricultural industry to other industries in the country to which the supply of horses on such terms would be of assistance?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No special facilities for obtaining horses have been granted to the agricultural industry. A number of mares selected for breeding purposes have been loaned to certain persons under conditions laid down by the Board of Agriculture, but this arrangement was made solely with a view to the breeding of the right stamp of horse, and not with a view to favouring any individual persons or industries. I may, however, inform my hon. and gallant Friend that a scheme has recently been approved, and is about to come into operation, whereby a large number of light draught horses will be hired out on advantageous terms to suitable individuals, business concerns or corporations.

Colonel C. LOWTHER: Could not some of the horses from France be sold to British farmers, and are not the French peasantry notorious for their ill-treatment of horses?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think we need go into that part of the question. I should very much regret if the House lent itself to any expression of opinion of the kind. It is much too sweeping. But we are bringing horses over from France as fast as ships can carry them. I am perpetually pressing the Shipping Controller to give us more ships to bring over horses from France so that they can be utilised for all sorts of reconstructive work in this country.

WOMEN MEDICAL OFFICERS.

Mr. ACLAND: 26.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has considered the disabilities suffered by women medical officers employed in military hospitals owing to their not being allowed, under the Army Act, to hold Army rank; and, if so, whether he will have this legal disability removed in view of the pledge in the Government's election manifesto to remove all existing inequalities in the law as between men and women?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not aware that women doctors employed in military hospitals suffer disabilities on this account. A large number of civil medical practitioners are employed full time in such, hospitals under exactly similar conditions. As regards the latter part of my hon. Friend's question, I would refer him to the reply given on Monday to the hon. and gallant Member for Islington (East) to the effect that it is not proposed to introduce legislation on this point during the present Session.

ARMY PAY (CAPTAINS AND LIEUTENANTS).

Mr. W. R. SMITH: 35.
asked what amount of bonus and gratuity is paid to captains and lieutenants in His Majesty's Forces; whether quartermasters holding the rank of captain are paid according to their rank or as lieutenants; and what is the reason for this distinction?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am informed that for officers whose rate of pay depends on their rank, the bonus for the Army of
Occupation is at the rate of 4s. a day for a lieutenant and 4s. 6d. for a captain. In applying this scale to quartermasters they are classified according to the rank normally appertaining to their rate of pay, the rate of 13s. 6d. carrying bonus as a captain. War gratuity is given according to rank, on a scale depending upon the number of months' service and other factors. Full details of this scale were published in the Press on 13th February last.

HUCKNALL AERODROME (WATER SUPPLY).

Mr. ATKEY: 36.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he was aware that at the urgent request of Colonel Martin Deacon, Royal Engineers, for the Deputy-Director of Fortification and Works (Aviation), the water department of the Corporation of Nottingham fixed a meter on 1st March, 1918, for a supply of water to the Hucknall Aerodrome, that the water was not required until 6th May, 1918, that the War Office has refused to sign the usual agreement and declined to pay for the water used, and that there is an amount now owing to the Nottingham Corporation of £456; and will he now arrange to put the matter in order?

Mr. PRATT: The War Office are not concerned in the proposed agreement, which is between the corporation and the Air Ministry. The Air Ministry have not refused to sign an agreement nor declined to pay for the water used. They are at present negotiating with the corporation regarding the price to be charged, as the rate proposed by the corporation was in excess of the statutory scale in force at the time. As soon as the rate is agreed upon, settlement will be made.

Mr. ATKEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the grounds for his statement that a charge was made in excess of the scale? I have the authority of the chairman of the committee to say that it was not so.

Mr. PRATT: The hon. Member had better put down a further question on the Paper.

HONOURS (MENTION IN DISPATCHES).

Lieutenant-Colonel M'LEAN: 38.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he
would consider the mentioning in dispatches of officers and men who have been recommended for reward by divisional commanders, but whose names did not pass beyond corps headquarters?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir. The mention in dispatches must necessarily be based upon the dispatches of the Commander-in-Chief.

NAVY AND ARMY CANTEEN BOARD.

Colonel BURN: 41.
asked the Secretary of State for War if any changes are contemplated in the personnel of the management of the Navy and Army Canteen Board; and, if so, will the House have an opportunity of discussing those changes before definite action is taken?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The members of the Board of Management of the Navy and Army Canteen Board are appointed by the Board of Admiralty, the Army Council, and the Air Council. It is not usual for this House to discuss administrative appointments of this nature before they are made, nor do I consider it desirable that such a departure should be made. The principle is that the Government act in their discretion, subject to the support or censure of the House when occasion arises.

BRITISH, CANADIAN AND AUSTRALIAN FORCES.

CASUALTIES IN YPRES SALIENT.

Major ENTWISTLE: 43.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he would state what were the total casualties suffered by the British, Canadian, and Australian troops, respectively, in the Ypres salient during the operations commencing on 31st July, 1917, and ending on 11th November, 1917?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I will give the figures for the period 31st July, 1917 to 18th November, 1917, as we have these readily available, and they are probably what my hon. and gallant Friend requires.
The figures are:

Officers.
Other Ranks.


Regulars and Territorial Forces
10,795
207,838


Canadian Contingent
496
11,917


Australian Contingent
1,289
26,502

These totals include all killed, wounded and missing (including prisoners) as well as deaths from wounds and other causes.

AWARDS TO REGULAR AND OTHER FORCES.

Major ENTWISTLE: 44.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he would state the total number of honours and decorations, British or Foreign, awarded to the officers of the Regular Forces during the War and the total number awarded to the officers of the Territorial Forces and New Armies; and the approximate proportion of Regular officers to those of the other forces as above employed during the War?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The number of honours and decorations awarded to officers of the Regular Forces, Territorial Force, and New Armies, respectively, are not separately available, and the compilation of a Return giving this information would entail a great deal of research which it is not practicable at the present time to undertake. I am, however, taking this opportunity of circulating in the Official Report, for the information of the House, a statement as to the total number of military honours of the various categories conferred on all ranks since the commencement of the War, together with the total number of foreign decorations conferred on the British Armies during the War.
The following is the statement referred to:

WAR HONOURS.


(August, 1914, to 28th February, 1919.)


British Forces


Honours conferred for Services in the Field.


V.C.
568


V.C. Bars
2


G.C.B.
5


K.C.B.
102


C.B.
714


G.C.M.G.
11


K.C.M.G.
99


C.M.G 
1,812


Order of the British Empire(Military Division)—


K.B.E.
3


C.B.E.
33


O.B.E.
750


M.B.E.
147

D.S.O.
8,435


D.S.O. Bars—


1st
609


2nd
52


3rd
3


M.C.
35,802


M.C. Bars—


1st
2,421


2nd
133


3rd
4


Royal Red Cross—


1st Class
350


2nd Class
1,048


Royal Red Cross Bars
17


D.C.M.
22,800


D.C.M. Bars—


1st
392


2nd
6


Military Medal
91,721


Military Medal Bars—


1st
3,773


2nd
98


Meritorious Service Medal
13,789


Meritorious Service Medal Bar
3


Honours conferred for Services in connection with the War.


V.C.
1†


G.C.B.
7


K.C.B.
31


C.B.
182


G.C.M.G.
2


K.C.M.G.
43


C.M.G.
465


Order of the British Empire* (Military Division)—


G.B.E.
2


K.B.E.
5


C.B.E
57


O.B.E
167


M.B.E.
111


D.S.O.
21†


D.S.O. Bars—1st
1†


M.C. Bars—


M.C.
23†


1st
1†


2nd
1†


Royal Red Cross—


1st Class
275


2nd Class
1,960


Royal Red Cross Bars
6


D.C.M.
29


M.M.
12


M.S.M.
2


* Exclusive of awards of the Civil Division to Military personnel eligible for transfer to the Military Division ("London Gazette," No. 31084, 27th December, 1918), but not yet so transferred.


†Air raids, coastal bombardments, etc.

Indian Forces.


Honours conferred on the recommendation of the Government of India for Services in the Field.


K.C.S.I.
2


C.S.I.
11

G.C.I.E.
1


K.C.I.E.
4


C.I.E.
59


Order of British India—


1st Class
29


2nd Class
262


Indian Order of Merit—


1st Class
18


2nd Class
876


Indian Distinguished Service Medal
2,495


I.D.S.M. Bar
15


Indian Meritorious Service Meda1
1,419


I.M.S.M. Bar
1


Honours conferred on the recommendation of the Government of India for Services in connection with the War.


G.C.S.I.
2


K.C.S.I.
2


C.S.I.
8


K.C.I.E.
7


C.I.E.
41


Order of British India—


1st Class
1


2nd Class
8


Orders and Decorations conferred on the British Armies by Allied Powers (up to and including announcements in "London Gazette," dated 29th January, 1919).


Officers
5,931


Other Ranks
9,398


Total
15,329

ALIEN ENEMIES INTERNED.

Mr. DENNIS HERBERT: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government that interned Germans shall not be allowed to remain and settle in this country; and, if so, whether he will take steps to prevent such Germans writing from internment camps to apply for business positions in this country and cause them to be notified that they will not be allowed to occupy business positions in this country?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir Hamar Greenwood): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. The general policy with regard to interned alien enemies is to repatriate them, as the Home Secretary stated in this House on the 13th February in answer to the hon. Member for the Twickenham Division. It is already the rule in the civilian internment camps that inmates are not allowed to send out letters asking for employment in this country, and notices prohibiting the writing of such letters have been posted in the camps. If any letter of this sort has escaped the censorship it should be brought to the notice of the Home Office.

DISCHARGED SOLDIERS (LAND CULTIVATION).

Mr. RENDALL: 47.
asked the Prime Minister whether an application by Mr. F. C. Constable, J.P., of Wick Court, Gloucester, on behalf of three discharged soldiers who voluntarily joined the Army in 1914 for 30 acres of land to work in co-operation, had been sent to the Ministry of Labour, the Local Government Board, and the Board of Agriculture; whether all the men were guaranteed as of good character, fit in health, and experienced in agriculture; what reply other than acknowledgments of these letters would be given; whether he realised that delay in the granting or refusal of these early applications would attract notoriety and would stop thousands of other discharged soldiers from attempting to obtain their living from the cultivation of land; and would he give an assurance that his proposals in this regard would be carried out and the applications of these men promptly considered and satisfied?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen): The Board have received Mr. Constable's application, and he has been supplied with copies of the booklet explaining the Land Settlement scheme. He has also been requested to get the three men in question to fill in the necessary application forms, and forward them to the Gloucestershire County Council. The Board have written to the county council asking them to deal promptly with the applications when received.

GOVERNMENT TRADE CONTROL AND LICENCES.

Major BARNES: 46.
asked the Prime Minister if he would order a public inquiry as to the necessity for the continuance of Government controls and licences for importing and exporting, and dealing in raw materials, and as to their effect on trade and the cost of living, with instructions to report its findings and recommendations at the earliest possible date?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The whole subject is engaging the attention of the Government, and I do not think the suggestion of my hon. Friend could be usefully adopted.

Major BARNES: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the results of such an inquiry would not only be of interest to the public, but of use to the Government in deciding upon the course of future legislation?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think that that method of arriving at information would be found to attain the end which the hon. and gallant Member desires.

AFTER-WAR TRADE (GOVERNMENT POLICY).

Mr. HIGHAM: 48.
asked the Prime Minister if he is in a position to state the after-war trade policy of the Government, with special regard to Colonial preference, dumping, and the protection of our key industries?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot add anything to the answer which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Wandsworth on the 13th February.

Mr. HIGHAM: In view of the enormous addition to the National Debt which will be included in the new Budget, is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to tell the House that before the presentation of that Budget the Government's policy in regard to after-war trade will be announced?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The subject is now being dealt with by the Government, and it is quite impossible to make any statement on this occasion.

Mr. LAMBERT: Is it intended to make any change in the fiscal policy of the country?

Mr. BONAR LAW: It depends on what my right hon. Friend calls the fiscal policy of the country.

Colonel LOWTHER: Is the Government about to depart from the policy laid down by the Prime Minister at the time of the election, which includes the prevention of dumping and the protection of our key industries?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is to the effect that we are taking the steps necessary to carry out that policy.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF WAYS AND COMMUNICATIONS.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: 50.
asked whether the Cabinet has made any estimate of the cost of the proposed new Ministry of Ways and Communications; and, if so, what is the amount?

Mr. BONAR LAW: Without the full consideration and investigation contemplated in the Bill during the period of two years of continued control, it is impossible to estimate the cost of the new Ministry. The exact numbers of the staff to be transferred from other Departments can only be laid down when the Bill has become an Act, but it is not thought that a large additional staff will be required in the immediate future.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: 51.
asked the Prime Minister how many Under-Secretaries it is proposed to appoint to the Ministry of Ways and Communications?

Mr. BONAR LAW: It is intended to ask for sanction for the appointment of two Under-Secretaries, but a third may be found necessary during the early stages of the transition period.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will that mean three more Ministers in addition to the existing Ministers?

Mr. BONAR LAW: My hon. Friend is as good at arithmetic as I.

Mr. DEVLIN: Will these Under-Secretaries be Members of Parliament?

Mr. BONAR LAW: Certainly. That is the intention.

Mr. DEVLIN: Will there be any Members of Parliament left who are not Under-Secretaries?

Sir C. HENRY: 53.
asked whether the right hon. Member for Cambridge took part in the construction and drafting of the Ministry of Ways and Communications Bill; if so, why his name does not appear on the back of the Bill; and whether, in the event of the Bill becoming an Act, it is the intention to appoint the right hon. Member for Cambridge Ministry of Ways and Communications?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. My right hon. Friend's name does not appear upon the back of the Bill, because such a course would be unusual in
the circumstances. It is the Prime Minister's intention to invite him to assume the duties of Minister of Ways and Communications when that post is created.

Sir C. HENRY: What are the conditions in reference to names appearing on the back of Bills?

Mr. BONAR LAW: It is not usual to have anyone's name on the back of a Bill who does not occupy an existing office.

Sir A. FELL: 62.
asked if a financial statement and papers will be supplied to Members before the Ways and Communications Bill comes on showing the result of the working of the railways under Government control and the effect of the rise of wages and the increased fares upon the railroad earnings and profits?

Mr. BONAR LAW: My right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge proposes to deal with this question on the Second Heading of the Bill; but if, subsequently, a general desire be shown for further information, it will be supplied as far as is practicable.

Sir A. FELL: Are the House and the public not entitled to reliable information with regard to railways in which there are such immense interests before we discuss this matter?

Mr. BONAR LAW: It is a question of what is obtainable. The figures for the actual working are not available. It can only be an estimate.

Sir E. CARSON: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability before the Second Reading of this Bill of publishing as a Parliamentary Paper a full statement of the powers that are proposed to be transferred by this Bill?

Mr. BONAR LAW: That suggestion is a new one to me, but I shall have it considered.

Mr. CLEMENT EDWARDS: Is it not possible for a statement to be issued to the Members showing the increase in wages and in railway rates, as this is material for the use of the Members when we come to the Second Reading next week?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I have not had an opportunity of discussing this with my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, but if there is any information to that effect which will be useful I shall have it circulated.

Oral Answers to Questions — FEDERATION OF DISCHARGED SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.

Mr. ROBERT YOUNG: 52.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the Federation of Discharged Soldiers and Sailors is now definitely allied to one of the political parties; whether the Government are forming an organisation of their own for discharged soldiers; and, if so, for what purpose, seeing that it is expected that such an organisation under Government auspices will amalgamate most of the existing organisations of discharged men?

Mr. CHURCHILL: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. This matter is engaging my personal attention, and I hope in the course of a few weeks to be in a position to announce a general policy to the House which I trust may meet with its approval. It is not a matter which, in my opinion, can be satisfactorily dealt with by question and answer, but only in Debate.

Mr. HOGGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how he proposes to bring this before the House. Shall we have an opportunity of debating it on the Vote for the expenditure of the money concerned, and further, in view of the fact—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is premature.

Mr. HOGGE: Is it a fact that the National Federation of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers has ever been allied with any political party?

Mr. CHURCHILL: That is a question which should be addressed to the hon. Member who asked the question.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMERCIAL POSITION (TRADE RESTRICTIONS).

Mr. FRANCE: 54.
asked the Prime Minister if he will grant an early day to discuss the question of the commercial position of the nation as affected by the continued restrictions on trade and the heavy burdens of expenditure, including the continuance of unemployed allowances, which have not been discussed in the House?

Mr. BONAR LAW: If there be a general desire for such a discussion, I shall try and arrange it.

Oral Answers to Questions — INCOME TAX (WOMEN).

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: 56.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will receive a deputation of women in respect of their grievances under the present Income Tax laws?

Major TRYON: 69.
asked whether the taxation of married women is to remain unchanged in principle until the Royal Commission on Income Tax has reported?

Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): It would not be possible to single out the question of the taxation of married women for consideration in advance of the findings of the Royal Commission. I hope that their case will be fully put before that Commission and in these circumstances my right hon. Friend does not think that he could usefully receive the deputation suggested by my hon. Friend at the present time.

Major TRYON: I beg to give notice that I will call attention to this question on the Adjournment of the House to-day.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR INDEMNITY.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: 63.
asked the Prime Minister whether in the Armistice terms signed on 11th November, 1918, the words with the reservation that any future claims and demands of the Allies and the United States remain unaffected appear in the official United States bulletin as part of Clause 18 dealing with repatriation, but in the British text as part of Clause 19 dealing with reparation, etc.; whether he can say which version is correct; and whether the British version allows complete freedom to the Allies to demand an indemnity apart altogether from reparation for actual damage done?

Mr. BONAR LAW: As I have already stated the French is the official text and the British version is an exact translation of it. As regards the last part of the question I cannot add anything to the very definite statements which have been already made on the subject.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been called to the statement in to-day's Press that the British Government are now considering the question of making no money claim whatever against Germany, and can he give any information?

Mr. BONAR LAW: My attention was called to it by my hon. Friend sending it to me, but it does not in the least represent the intention of the Government.

Mr. MACMASTER: Is it not a fact that the French version is the official version, and that the words in the French version are "rêparation des dommages"which have a special signification in the French language, that is perfectly distinct from the meaning of "indemnity"?

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: I beg to give notice that I propose to raise this question on the War Cabinet Vote this, afternoon, or if that Vote is not reached on the Adjournment to-night.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPE AND ASIA MINOR (REVICTUALLING).

Mr. A. WILLIAMS: 64.
asked the Prime Minister whether he can make any statement as to the revictualling of the regions of Europe and Asia Minor threatened with famine or severe want and unemployment as a result of the War?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I regret that I am not in a position to make any statement. The revictualling of these regions is entirely in the hands of the Food Committee of the Supreme Economic Council at Paris.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Can we not have an early statement in regard to the matter?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I am not in a position to make any statement now. I cannot say how soon I may be.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR CLASPS.

Captain R. TERRELL: 63.
asked the Secretary of State for War when he will be able to make a statement on the number and identity of the clasps to be awarded in connection with the War; whether, in making the awards, he will consider the advisability of differentiating between the clasps bestowed on Staff officers and those bestowed on regimental officers; and, if so, what form the differentiation will take?

Mr. CHURCHILL: It should be possible to make a statement on this subject in the course of the next few months. I am in sympathy with the view that every effort
should be made to restrict the issue of clasps to those who have taken part in active operations, though the regulations are not easy to frame. I am not prepared to discriminate between Staff and regimental officers: such a practice would be wholly unprecedented in the British Service.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR GRATUITIES.

Mr. RENDALL: 69.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office, with reference to his answer on the 25th of February to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Thornbury), that £25 or £15, according to whether a soldier has served overseas, is given on discharge as a gratuity, why the regimental paymaster, No. 1, York Cavalry, has refused Sergeant H. A. Mills any gratuity on the ground that he received full civil emoluments from his employers (the Post Office) whilst with the Colours; on what order such refusal is based; are gratuities refused when non-Government employers have granted civil emoluments; and why should any difference in treatment be made between the two?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am already inquiring into the case of Sergeant Mills, but if he has been in receipt of full civil pay from the Post Office, he will, in accordance with the Government decision, not be entitled to war gratuity.

Mr. RENDALL: Why was the statement made that all soldiers got a gratuity of £25 or £15 according to whether they served at home or abroad if that is not true unless qualified?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not know when the statement was made without the necessary qualification.

Mr. RENDALL: It was made last week.

Oral Answers to Questions — SMALL HOLDINGS.

Mr. ROYCE: 70.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether, in view of the fact that the Board of Agriculture in their leaflets have recently stated that holdings of less than 30 acres are rarely sufficient to support a family, the Government nevertheless intends to offer to ex-soldiers great numbers of holdings of under 5 acres?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The extract from the leaflet to which the hon. Member refers is concerned with holdings for "Mixed Farming." The leaflet goes on to state that "under favourable conditions where an intensive system of culture has been adopted success can be achieved on holdings of 3 to 5 acres." The holdings of less than 5 acres are, however, in the main intended for men who obtain the principal part of their livelihood by working for wages, but who desire a small area of land for cultivation or for keeping some live stock. The Board have evidence that a large number of ex-Service men desire such holdings.

Mr. ROYCE: Will the hon. Gentleman take into consideration that with 5 acres a man will require some other occupation?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I would ask my hon. Friend to await the introduction of the Land Settlement Bill, when I shall be in a position to make a full statement.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY COMMISSION.

Mr. CARTER (by Private Notice): asked the Lord Privy Seal whether similar steps will be taken to ensure publicity of the proceedings of the Coal Industry Commission as were taken with regard to the interview between the Prime Minister and the Executive of the Miners' Federation, of Great Britain?

Mr. BONAR LAW: Both the Press and the public are admitted to the sittings of the Coal Industry Commission, which should ensure full publicity of its proceedings.

Mr. CARTER: Seeing the importance of the information which will be given and also noticing to-day that after a full day's discussion yesterday only about a column and a half of information is being given to the Press, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he is prepared to submit this question as a question of national importance to the Peace Aims Committee so that the public shall be in a position to give an intelligent judgment on this very important subject that is now before the country?

Mr. BONAR LAW: This Commission is going to sit about fifteen days. I believe that the ordinary channels will give the information which interests the public. If
at any time exceptional circumstances such as those referred to in the previous interview arise the Government will do their best to see that the public are kept fully informed.

Oral Answers to Questions — IRISH POLICY.

Mr. DEVLIN: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he is now in a position to state whether he will give a day for the discussion of Irish policy?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I think it is in accordance with our usual practice to give such a day, and I shall try to arrange it.

Oral Answers to Questions — QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS.

Mr. DEVLIN: I desire to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether you have given further consideration to the suggestion made in the House about ten days ago that additional time should be given for the asking and answering of questions? I may say that for four weeks we have not reached an Irish question on the Paper.

Mr. SPEAKER: The matter does not rest with me, but with the House itself.

Mr. DEVLIN: May I respectfully suggest that you should, in the form in which you so effectively did it before, take the judgment of the House on this question?

Mr. SPEAKER: It would require an alteration of the Standing Order, which I fixes the time allotted to questions up to a quarter to four o'clock. I have no power to alter the Standing Order; that must be done by the House.

Mr. DEVLIN: Would I have power to do so?

Mr. SPEAKER: Certainly, if the hon. Member will give notice of it in due course, only he must find his own day for the purpose.

Oral Answers to Questions — MEMBER SWORN.

Major David Watts Morgan, Rhondda Borough (East Division), took the Oath and signed the Roll.

Oral Answers to Questions — STANDING ORDERS.

Resolution reported from the Select Committee.

"That, in the case of the Llanelly Corporation, Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought not to be dispensed with."

Report to lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — BILLS PRESENTED.

SUMMONS AND PROCESS SERVERS' FEES (IRELAND) BILL,—"to prescribe the fees that may be charged for service of justices' summonses and County Court processes in Ireland," presented by the Attorney-General for Ireland; supported by Mr. Macpherson; to be read a second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 13.]

PUBLIC HEALTH (MEDICAL TREATMENT OF CHILDREN) (IRELAND) BILL,—"to make provision for the medical treatment of children attending elementary schools in Ireland, and for other matters incidental thereto," presented by Mr. Macpherson; supported by the Attorney-General for Ireland; to be read a second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 14.]

INCREASE OF RENT AND MORTGAGE INTEREST (RESTRICTIONS) BILL,—"to extend, amend, and prolong the duration of the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act, 1915, and the enactments amending that Act," presented by Mr. Fisher; supported by Dr. Addison and the Attorney-General; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 15.]

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. ADAMSON: Would the Leader of the House let us know what business he proposes to take on Friday next?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The Rent Restriction (Amendment) Bill.

Mr. HOGGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say if, after this week, the Government are prepared to give the Fridays to private Members.

Mr. BONAR LAW: I have been discussing this regularly with my Noble Friend (Lord Edmund Talbot). We are not quite sure, but perhaps by Monday we shall be able to see what we can do. The House must remember it was to meet their views that we definitely fixed 31st March, and I think possibly we may not be able to anticipate that date.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.— [2ND ALLOTTED DAY.]

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS

ESTIMATES, 1919–1920.

VOTE ON ACCOUNT.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £210,310,000, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charges of the following Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, namely:

£


Ministry of Munitions
100


Class I.


Royal Palaces
35,000


Osborne
6,000


Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens
75,000


Houses of Parliament Buildings
35,000


Miscellaneous Legal Buildings, Great Britain
25,000


Art and Science Buildings, Great Britain
51,000


Diplomatic and Consular Buildings
50,000


Revenue Buildings
270,000


Ministry of Labour, Employment Exchange, and Insurance Buildings, Great Britain
300,000

£


Public Buildings, Great Britain
1,628,000


Surveys of the United Kingdom
120,000


Harbours under the Board of Trade
3,000


Peterhead Harbour
10,000


Rates on Government Property
750,000


Public Works and Buildings, Ireland
95,000


Railways, Ireland
18,000


Class II


United Kingdom and England:—


House of Lords Offices
23,000


House of Commons
110,000


War Cabinet
20,000


Treasury and Subordinate Departments
80,000


Home Office
200,000


Foreign Office
110,000


Colonial Office
37,000


Privy Council Office
5,000


Board of Trade
1,300,000


Department of Overseas Trade
100,000


Mercantile Marine Services
70,000


Bankruptcy Department of the Board of Trade
4


Interim Forest Authority
45,000


Board of Agriculture and Fisheries
1,500,000


Charity Commission
17,000


Government Chemist
19,000


Civil Service Commission
27,000


Conciliation and Arbitration Board
2,000


Exchequer and Audit Department
50, 000


Friendly Societies Registry
15,000


Local Government Board
655,000


Board of Control
100,000


Mint, including Coinage
4


National Debt Office
8,000


Public Record Office
13,000


Public Works Loan Commission
6,000


Registrar-General's Office
25,000


Stationery and Printing
3,000,000


Woods, Forests, etc., Office of
12,000


Works and Public Buildings, Office of
125,000


Privy Seal Office
3,000


Secret Service
150,000


Scotland:—


Secretary for Scotland, Office of
14,000


Board of Agriculture
100,000


Fishery Board
11,000


General Board of Control
18,000


Registrar-General's Office
5,000


Local Government Board
50,000

£


Ireland:—


Lord Lieutenant's Household
1,200


Chief Secretary's Offices and Subordinate Departments
30,000


Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction
190,000


Charitable Donations and Bequests Office
1,000


Congested Districts Board
100,000


Local Government Board
70,000


Public Record Office
4,000


Public Works Office
22,000


Registrar-General's Office
7,000


Valuation and Boundary Survey
19,000


Class III.


United Kingdom and England:—


Law Charges
90,000


Miscellaneous Legal Expenses
32,000


Supreme Court of Judicature, Etc.
150,000


Land Registry
25,000


Public Trustee
5


County Courts
120,000


Police, England and Wales
800,000


Prisons, England and the Colonies
500,000


Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Great Britain
220,000


Criminal Lunatic Asylums, England
30,000


Scotland:—


Law Charges and Courts of Law
40,000


Scottish Land Court
4,000


Register House, Edinburgh
20,000


Police
140,000


Prisons
75,000


Ireland:—


Law Charges and Criminal Prosecutions
27,000


Supreme Court of Judicature, and other Legal Departments
55,000


Land Commission
345,000


County Court Officers, etc.
50,000


Dublin Metropolitan Police
110,000


Royal Irish Constabulary
900,000


Prisons
80,000


Reformatory and Industrial Schools
60,000


Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum
5,000


Class IV.


United Kingdom and England:—


Board of Education
15,000,000


British Museum
90,000


National Gallery
23,000

£


National Portrait Gallery
4,000


Wallace Collection
5,000


London Museum
2,000


Imperial War Museum
16,000


Scientific Investigation, etc.
50,000


Scientific and Industrial Research
80,000


Universities and Colleges, United Kingdom, and Intermediate Education, Wales
300,000


Universities, etc., Special Grants
200,000


Serbian Relief Fund
12,500


Scotland:—


Public Education
1,750,000


National Galleries
4,000


Ireland:—


Public Education
1,350,000


Intermediate Education
1,000


Endowed Schools Commissioners
400


National Gallery
1,500


Science and Art
35,000


Universities and Colleges
44,000


Class V.


Diplomatic and Consular Services
600,000


Colonial Services
138,000


Telegraph Subsidies
8,000


Cyprus (Grant-in-Aid)
49,000


Class VI.


Superannuation and Retired Allowances
390,000


Miscellaneous Expenses
20,277


Hospitals and Charities, Ireland
16,000


Temporary Commissions
90,000


Repayments to the Local Loans Fund
—


Ireland Development Grant
280,000


Government Hospitality
90,000


Expenses under the Representation of the People Act
300,000


Development Fund
—


Road Improvement Fund
—


Repayments to the Civil Contingencies Fund
—


Class VII.


Old Age Pensions
7,000,000


National Health Insurance Joint Committee
400,000


National Health Insurance Commission (England)
1,900,000


National Health Insurance Commission (Wales)
180,000


National Health Insurance Commission (Scotland)
350,000

£


National Health Insurance Commission (Ireland)
162,000


Ministry of Labour
1,500,000


National Insurance Audit Department
65,000


Treatment of Tuberculosis (Special Grants)
150,000


Highlands and Islands (Medical Service) Board
1,000


Friendly Societies' Deficiency
—


Unclassified Votes.


Ministry of Munitions (Ordnance Factories)
10


Ministry of Pensions
27,000,000


Ministry of Food
1,300,000


Ministry of Shipping
900,000


Ministry of National Service
120,000


Ministry of Reconstruction
27,000


National War Aims Committee
—


Ministry of Blockade
—


Ministry of Information
—


Ministry of Labour (Civil Demobilisation and Resettlement Department)
19,000,000


Bread Subsidy
20,000,000


War Trade Department
29,000


Restriction of Enemy Supplies Department
1,000


National War Savings Committee
50,000


Treasury Securities Deposit Scheme
950,000


Imperial War Graves Commission
467,000


Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic)
200,000


Loans to Dominions and Allies
37,500,000


Railway Agreements
30,000,000


Canal Compensation
350,000


Military Service (Civil Liabilities) Department
2,250,000


Property Losses Compensation (Ireland)
90,000


Purchase of Housing Materials
—


Royal Patriotic Fund
—


Commission International de Revitaillement
30,000


Miscellaneous War Services (Foreign Office)
1,750,000



190,490,000


Revenue Departments:—


Customs and Excise
2,000,000


Inland Revenue
1,820,000


Post Office
16,000,000


Total for Civil Services and Revenue Departments
£210,310,000

Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): With the permission of the Chair, I think it might be well that I should say a few words on the Accounts as a whole, because in their present form they are not easy to understand, and it is almost impossible to make any comparison either of the Accounts as they have stood during the War, or of the Accounts as they were before the War. It will be remembered by hon. Members that these are the first Estimates since the pre-War Estimates which were presented for the year 1914—for the financial year ending 31st March, 1915—where the whole expenditure has been properly allocated, because as soon as the country entered into a state of war all excesses over the normal expenditure of the Civil Departments directly attributable to a state of war were charged to the Votes of Credit. I do not think it is necessary to say anything here and now as to the reason for that course. It is sufficient to state that it was the only practical course that could be suggested by the Government, and was recognised as such by the then House of Commons. My purpose, therefore—using figures very roughly—is to dwell for a minute or two only on the difference between the Estimates of this year and those of last year, and then to explain as simply as I can at a little greater length, but still I hope shortly, the main lines of difference between the expenditure of the Estimates of to-day and the pre-War Estimates of 1914–15 to which I have alluded.
4.0 P.M.
The first thing that strikes anyone on examining these Accounts is the enormous increase between the total Estimate for this year and the same Estimate at the corresponding period of last year. The reason for that, of course, is that for the first time since the War we have in these Estimates total charges—all the charges that have been taken out of the ordinary Estimates and concealed very largely inside the Vote of Credit. If hon. Members will throw their minds back to a White Paper, or rather a White Book, that was produced in April of last year they will remember that there was set out as accurately as it could be at that time the estimated expenditure that would fall on Votes of Credit scheduled to the various Departments, and if you take out of those Estimates the provision as specified for the fighting Services, there appears a sum of £640,000,000 approximately charged against the Vote of
Credit, all of amounts which, had the Estimates been prepared in the ordinary way, would have appeared in the Civil Service Estimates similar to those which we are presenting to-day. If you add to that £640,000,000 the amount actually provided in the Estimates you get a total last year of Estimates, which may be taken on all fours with these Civil Service Estimates, of no less a sum than £736,000,000. So that if you compare these figures with the figures you have before you to-day you will find there is a decrease of £240,000,000, which represents this fact, that although these accounts are of such abnormal dimensions, we can yet see that the flood has reached its height and that the ebb of the tide has begun. I would say here that the main changes to which we have looked in getting that decrease, and the main changes to which we must look in the coming year, are the items towards the end of the Votes which are in the hands of hon. Members, and those are the unclassified Votes representing amounts which are directly due to the state of war. They represent amounts some of which will be permanent and some of which are temporary, using the word "temporary" in the most elastic form that is possible. Some I hope may be extinguished in a year or two, others may last for some years. I hope to say a few words on the unclassified Votes before I sit down.
The comparison I have made is a very wide one, and I do not say that it is a very useful one at the moment. What we think is much more useful is to make such comparisons as we can—and they can only be very rough ones, until the accounts have standardised themselves, when we have got rid of all direct war charges—to make comparisons between the accounts as they are presented to-day and the Estimates for 1914–15, the last Estimates belonging to the pre-War period. Those Estimates come to about £88,000,000. The Estimates to-day are £495,000,000. There is a difference of £407,000,000, and it is on that difference that I would beg the Committee for a few minutes to devote their attention. If they look at these Estimates to-day, on the last page, they will see that no less than £325,000,000 is accounted for. In these items, as I have said, lies our only chance of making really considerable saving, I have said that some of these items will be permanent and some tem-
porary. Of the temporary ones which will extend to a permanency for the lifetime of a great many of us here we have that very considerable item of pensions. That amounts, in this Vote, to £73,000,000, and I am afraid that that amount has not yet touched the high-water mark. But though it may rise within the next few years it is an amount which soon must touch the highest point and must then begin to fall. The day will come when that item will be gradually diminished until, in time, it is extinguished. The Estimates that are down for the Food and Shipping Departments are temporary, I hope, in the literal sense of that word. I hope a very short time may see the end of these Votes, as of the large Vote at the top of the last page, which includes unemployment donations and sundry expenses in connection with demobilisation. Then the bread subsidy, which appears for the first time as a separate Estimate, is an amount of which I hope we may very soon see the end. The same remark applies to substantial but still considerably reduced items for loans to the Dominions and Allies. The amounts down for civil liabilities and miscellaneous war services must also disappear at a very early date.
There is one very large item in these amounts—I cannot say, of course, whether it will appear in the accounts permanently or not—in connection with the railways. By far the largest portion of this amount is represented by increased wages to the railwayman, and there is no doubt that in some form or another this will be a permanent charge on this country. Time alone will show whether it will be a charge direct on the Exchequer or whether it will be spread over the country as a whole in the form of increased railway fares and charges for goods. The Committee will remember the figure which I have given for these unclassified Votes amounting to £325,000,000. They will see that we have left still a difference of £80,000,000 between the Civil Service Estimates of the last year before the War and those of to-day. How can we account for this £80,000,000? Here, again, I should like to put before the Committee certain items in the shape of lump sums which are included in these Votes and which I think will meet with the approval of the Committee. Having done that, there will be a residuum representing an increase in the actual cost of the Departments which I am afraid will for the
most part remain with us. Out of this £80,000,000 we have an increase of about £3,500,000 on the Votes for public works and buildings, and I would say that that is quite sufficiently explained by the increased cost of the works which have been done and by the amount of work held over owing to the closing down of all repairs and of all buildings which were not absolutely necessary during the War. Then, under the Vote which includes law and justice, there is a substantial increase of about £4,000,000, the greater part of which—I am sure the Committee will not grudge it—has gone to the police forces throughout the United Kingdom and for the improvement in the pay of the staffs connected with the prisons.
Then, education has made a large call on the Government for assistance, a call which accounts for something approaching an extra £20,000,000, the larger part of which must be a permanent increase. There are two items in the non-effective Vote that help to swell this £80,000,000, although they are items which I hope will not occur again. A million has been put down for Development Fund, to be used for purposes of reclamation, and £8,250,000 towards £10,000,000 which is to be provided for the improvement of roads. The Committee will notice that these sums are put down in toto in the accounts, but nothing is included for them in the Vote on Account. They are both new services, and as such must be introduced later on a full and substantive Estimate, when opportunity for discussion will arise. In Class VII. we have another permanent increase in old age pensions, where the extra 2s. 6d. given to the old age pensioners amounts to £6,000,000. That is an admirable instance of how a very small increase, and one for which a good deal is to be said, when spread over a large number of people, can amount to a total which makes a substantial difference on an estimate, and I think it must make the Committee realise that there must be some limit to the permanent increases that are put on the Estimates if this country is to continue in the long run solvent. There is also a special Grant on this Class VII. This is a sum, which is only temporary, of £3,000,000 in connection with the training of non-commissioned officers and men. These various amounts which I have touched on come to £46,000,000 out of the £80,000,000 I alluded to, leaving £34,000,000
unaccounted for. I would remind the Committee that £34,000,000 represents an increase of something like 40 per cent. only on the Vote which was taken in 1914–15,and I would contend that, when you remember that out of this sum the bonus which has been paid to the staffs in the Departments, which amounts as nearly as I can calculate to something in the neighbourhood of £10,000,000, and when you remember that included in the Departments in this estimate are the Revenue Department, I do not think we can express much surprise that the Revenue Department are showing a necessarily large increase over and above the increase which they have to bear in common with all Departments for the war bonus to which I am alluding. The amount of taxes they have to collect is infinitely greater than it was before the War. Their staffs must grow; the collection is getting more expensive, and I am not sanguine that they have yet reached the limit of charge for which we shall have to account for these great revenue collecting Departments. I am fully conscious how brief and how sketchy my remarks have been, but I was most anxious to try and put something before the Committee in a few words that might make the points clear to them. I knew that if I made any attempt to deal with details, I should take up much too much time of the Committee, and I am not at all sure that I, and the Committee, too, might not have lost ourselves in a mass of details. But I hope the information I have given may be of use and that it may provide some kind of key to the Estimates which are before us.
There is only one more thing I should like to say before the Debate resumes its normal course, and the first item on this Vote is taken. There has been, very naturally, a great deal of criticism about the preparation of Estimates. I have now had some little experience of the Department in which I have had the honour of serving. I have been there two years. My experience has taught me that these Departmental Estimates are prepared in the Departments with immense care, and that they are subject to a very careful scrutiny and examination by the Treasury. I do not think that any member of the Committee who is familiar with the form of our accounts would deny broadly the truth of that statement. But neither the Treasury nor the Department can perform the impossible, and it is not in the scrutiny of these various accounts,
as they come before the House, that the country is going to save money. The big money is not here. The only avoidable expenditure is the expenditure that is incurred in carrying out the policy of the Government for the time being, and that expenditure must be governed by the attitude of the Government for the time being in carrying out the expenditure. If a Government is extravagant, no Chancellor of the Exchequer and no Treasury is going to save it. The Government is dependent on the House of Commons. If a House of Commons does not attempt to hold a Government in check, that Government will go on spending money. But the House of Commons is dependent on the people of this country, and, therefore, you come down to this, that the ultimate arbiter of expenditure is neither the Government nor the House of Commons, but the individual voter who makes up the mass who send the representatives to this House. Until the people can realise the importance to every man in this country of saving money in these days, and of guarding the resources of this country, we shall never be able to check expenditure as it should be checked, and until the time comes when the ordinary man, instead of asking himself, "What can I get out of the State?" will ask himself, "What can I do for the State?" we shall never be able to put that drag on Governments which is absolutely essential in the interests of sound finance.

Sir DONALD MACLEAN: My hon. Friend, with that shining honesty which distinguishes him, has made some very interesting and useful remarks. In anything I have to say, of course I shall not entrench for one moment on the particular item with which the Debate is supposed to start off. I might just intervene for one moment to make one or two comments on the general position which my hon. Friend has set forth. First of all, let me say as to his interesting scheme of devolution of responsibility, I should be very sorry to make answer to a question from my own Constituency as to why the Government is so extravagant, by saying, "That is your fault for sending me to the House of Commons." I do not think that would be accepted by my Constituency as a proper answer. They can say—and I am sure they will say—"What have you done to ensure that these thousands of millions—because that is what it amounts to—which have been poured out, are being efficiently and honestly spent?" What can
I say? My only reply will be this: "On a certain afternoon, I sat in the House of Commons, and heard the Financial Secretary to the Treasury tell what was in truth a tale of millions, and he did his best to let us know, on general lines, what it meant. But I, in common with every member of the Committee, entirely failed to grasp with any degree of particularity what the position was." You cannot do it. I will only say this. Something might have been done. We had before us a Report from the Financial Expenditure Committee, and they made a suggestion which was a practical business one. My hon. Friend the Member for the Wrekin Division (Sir C. Henry) was one of the members of it, as was also the right hon. Baronet the junior Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury). They suggested that a Committee should be set up which would have power to call witnesses, to have professional assistance and to go over such a document as this, and before it came down to the House they would have been able to give us some guidance with regard, at any rate, to the main items of the suggested expenditure. That proposal was refused by the Government, and instead of it the Estimates are to be sent upstairs and come down here on Report. Here we have a clear-cut instance of how foolish it was to reject that practical suggestion, and we are left here wandering in a maze of hundreds of millions with no means of checking it.
The Debate this afternoon, I am quite sure, will run upon lines not of saving money, but rather of spending more money, if anything. That is what is going to happen, we all know. I venture to say that is not the real business of the House of Commons in its control over expenditure. There is not a single business man in the country who is not every day filled with apprehension as to what his position is to be within the next three months. He will take up his paper tomorrow, and he will read what our proceedings are this afternoon. One can talk for a long time, but there it is. And what is the Government going to do? Is it really going to grapple with expenditure? Is it or is it not? We are heading straight for national bankruptcy. Sooner or later we shall be found out by the impact of the fact. How long will the nation's credit continue? I believe that, in the face of Estimates such as these, the financial situation, which is not
only casting its shadow over us, but has already got us in its grip, will very speedily bring us to an issue which, to some extent, we might have avoided. Is it too late now? I do not think it is, but the longer we defer, the worse our fate will be. Is there anything I can do, or anybody here can do, to assist the Government in coming to a full stop? Cannot some strong committee be formed amongst Members of this House, within the next two or three days, to meet the Government, and to talk as business men over a grave financial situation? Is it too late? It cannot be too late. We set up Commissions for dealing with things when we are in the middle of a disaster. I make that suggestion to the Government. Let us all do what we can now to see if we cannot meet with the Government officials to suggest some business, common-sense way of stopping this terrible rot which has set in our finances.

MUNITIONS—NATIONAL FACTORIES.

Mr. FRANK ROSE: I beg to move, "That item (Ministry of Munitions) be reduced by £10."
Perhaps it would be an ungracious thing on my part to attempt to inveigle the Committee into a detailed scrutiny of the proceedings during the last four years of the bureaucratic Ministry known as the Ministry of Munitions of War. The whole case and its surroundings are so infinitely complex that even men of sound engineering knowledge, both in its technical and its industrial aspect, are apt to be confused, and, therefore, it seems to me that such criticisms as I can offer must be confined very largely to one or two specific points. At the same time, it may be admissible to offer one or two remarks of a general character. This extraordinary Ministry began, so we were told, with a chair and a table in an otherwise empty room at No. 6, Whitehall Gardens. See how it has grown! It now consists—or did very recently consist—of sixty Departments, divided into ten or twelve groups of Departments, every Department with its appropriate hotel or office, with its telegraphic address, and, like its prototype Dogberry, everything handsome about it. Though these sixty Departments may have been by some possibility either necessary, or deemed by our rulers to be necessary, two, three, or four years ago, or even six months
ago, it does not seem to me that any possible excuse can be offered for their continuance.
These sixty Departments, of which I have a list here, I shall not attempt to analyse, but I do wish to offer these suggestions: that there are quite a number of these Departments which might very well be relegated to limbo; also that the Ministry might possibly be able to effect some slight economies of a few million pounds, perhaps, by getting rid of them. As a matter of fact, I am not at all sure that the Ministry itself was ever a necessity! In the first group, Group S, there are Departments for Special Services, Special Intelligence, and Priority. I suggest that those three Departments might very well be got rid of. I do not think anybody would miss them except those who are quartered on them. In Group F there are aircraft, explosives and finance, taken over, I presume, by another Ministry—or they should have been. There is a Munitions Works Board. What its precise functions may be I do not know, and I do not know whether anybody in the Ministry can tell us, but it is there and ought not to be there. There is the Department of Trench Warfare. Does the Government contemplate a continuance of trench warfare? If they do not, what excuse have they for continuing a Trench Warfare Department in the Ministry of Munitions? There is Group M. In this we have Materials (Non-ferrous), and Mineral Resources Development. I do not know what excuse can be offered for the existence of these Departments. I do not know what suggestion can possibly be made as to their use, or possible use, either now or in the immediate or even in the remote future.
Here, however, is one whole group of Departments that surely, in the face of contemporary facts, ought to be swept clean out of existence. I refer to the Iron and Steal Production Department—the Factory Construction Department, the Forgings and Castings and Steel Department, and the Department of Building Bricks. Unless the Government are contemplating putting up more and more factories, to be brought under the auctioneer's hammer and sold for what they will fetch, I cannot understand why this group of Construction Departments can possibly be explained away or apologised for. I suggest that they might all go. We have the Trench Warfare Supplies
Department. How far they may or may not overlap the Trench Warfare Department I am not in a position to say. I merely suggest it, because it occurs to me, and probably will to any rational man, as something entirely superfluous; it could never have been set up for any other purpose except to find somebody jobs. There is the Department of Agricultural Machinery. What on earth the Ministry of Munitions has to do with agricultural machinery I do not know! They are not going to make any. It does not seem to me to come, in any shape or way, within the purview of their activities. There is electrical power supply which, we understand, is to be dealt with by some other Department. There is the Department of Machine Tools, which ought to have a chapter by itself. It would be too long a chapter I am afraid to enter into at this stage of the proceedings. I hope it will be elaborated and made plain at some later stage of this Session. Here, however, is the fact that the Machine Tools Department has been superintending, or supervising, or controlling in some way the output of machine tools. What the conditions are on which they have been supplied to contractors I do not know. I do not think anybody knows. I am not sure the Department itself knows. Here, however, is the fact that they have made all the machine tools they want. They are not going to run Government factories themselves; therefore they do not want to equip any. They are surely not going to build any more factories. Everybody who knows anything at all about our industry knows, and knows perfectly well, that it is already over-machined almost cent. per cent. Why is this elaborate and costly Department kept in existence at all?
There are three labour Departments of the Labour group—the labour regulation, the labour supply, and the labour advisory Department. Surely the functions of these Departments, if ever they exercised any, are handed over now to the Ministry of Labour? Why duplicate all this business? Why should there be a Labour adviser? The Ministry does not take his advice. It would have been in a better position to face the country now if it had done. That has not been done. Why should they keep an adviser whose advice they do not take? Finally, we have the Department of the Ministry of Munitions Journal. This is a silly, amateurish, and a useless publication. It is an unworthy thing from a technical point of view. It is quite unworthy
from the point of view of journalism. I suggest that these are items of expense that might reasonably be cut down. I may be accused of being an extremist if I suggested, as I would suggest, the reform, if not the abolition, of the Ministry of Munitions, root and branch, fibre and particle. In my view it has never been any good at all. In my opinion, at least, it is a hopeless encumbrance. Its Departmentalism, its folly, its waste, its ineptitude have passed into household words amongst engineers. If there is some insuperable obstacle to sweeping this ridiculous, and preposterous Ministry out of existence entirely, there can surely be none in accommodating its proportions and its expense to the present necessities of the country.
The one question with which I want to deal in this special way is the question of the making, the equipping, and the disposal of a number of Government factories. The question which I put to the Ministry a few days ago has elicited the fact that some £65,000,000 have been involved in Government factories. I urge that there could have been only one useful purpose to be served by the erection of these factories, and that was to provide, and to secure, that in any future national emergency we should not be put to the ignoble extremity of dependence upon private contractors for the supply of war material. If these factories were not built with that idea in view, for what purpose were they built? A practical man would say that factories of this kind cannot be blown up in a night. They do not take days or weeks, but years to perfect and equip. I want to know whether the whole of these Government factories, which have cost £65,000,000, have ever returned the equivalent of their capital cost in production? I doubt very much whether they have. All these things have been kept secret. The cost and the output of these factories have been kept secret, the fiction being that the Germans might get to know. I venture to think that unless the German authorities have lost the faculty of counting ten on the fingers of their hand, they have known a great deal more about our munitions output than the British public have been allowed to know; for, after all, they have only had to look over the statistics of the steel and metals industries, which are not difficult to understand, and deduce what the factories are that have been built. These have been equipped at enormous cost. The whole
£65,000,000 has been absorbed in buildings and machinery. Though there has been no return made, if the return has been ample, why is the Government so anxious to get the venture off their hands?
The suggestion is now made that it would be unwise and impolitic to enter, as the State, into competition with private producers. That has never occurred, so far as I know, in the case of shipbuilding for naval purposes. It has not even occurred before in the case of armaments, and the one huge factory to which I want to draw attention—I do not know whether it is prudent to mention the place—but in the North of England there is a projected factory that was originally designed to supersede in dimensions anything of the kind in the world, certainly the world outside Essen. As far as we can understand this great works was set up in order to relieve the congestion at Woolwich. These works are at Gretna Green. I suppose everybody knows now about them. I want to know, and I think the House ought to be told, whether these huge works are to be handed over to private enterprise; if so, we shall want to know how much of the £65,000,000 has been planted up there. We shall want to know in regard to that factory, especially and particularly, what are the Government proposals for its future. It seems to me to be little short of wantonness to set up a factory like that, which can scarcely be finished now, at such enormous cost, with such expenditure of precious material and more precious labour, and then practically to throw it away for hat it will fetch. We do not know under what conditions these factories are to be sold. We do know that we are here to enter a protest, as emphatic as we can make it, against the policy of the Government in selling to private enterprise all this enormous accumulation of wealth and labour that ought to be devoted to national projects in the national interest. I put a question on the Paper to-day to the Minister of Munitions asking whether the £65,000,000 Estimate includes the cost of chemical factories in explosive works. I am still in the dark as to this for, unfortunately, my question was not reached.

The DEPUTY-MINISTER of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): I may inform the hon. Member that it does.

Mr. ROSE: There is one explosive factory to which I want to call attention.
It happened near the beginning of 1916 that I was engaged at the Victoria Works, Winsham, by the Government in the capacity nominally of millwright. The whole of the equipment of that factory passed through my hands during the six months I was there, and if I were to attempt to tell the House some of the details I should be laughed at. Nobody here would believe it whether they were engineers or not, and I could not blame them, for so grotesque were some of these things that I am not at all sure, though I saw them myself, that I quite believe them. I have literally dug costly machinery out of heaps of cement and mortar, and I have found such things as economisers scattered about over three-quarters of a square mile in forty or fifty different places. The whole thing was one deplorable mess from end to end. May we be told how far that particular works exceeded in its actual cost the original estimate. When I went there I was told that the original estimate was £500,000, but they have spent more than, that already. We shall want to know whether the explosive factories of which this is a type, and the chemical works which the Government have caused to be built, are to be handed over and knocked down under the auctioneer's hammer, whether they are to be transferred or retained, and whether the Government feels the same compunction in dealing with the chemical monopoly that they had with private enterprise in other branches of engineering. Would it be so bad for the Government to enter into competition with the chemical manufacturers? Is it absolutely superfluous that, in view of future contingencies, the State should be enabled to provide itself with high explosives, or any other explosives it wanted. Has the whole of this business to go back to private enterprise, or has it not? Are any reservations to be made, and will the Minister responsible kindly tell us what, if any, reservations they are making in respect of the transfer of this immensity of valuable property?
Apart from this particular phase of the question, it does seem to me strange that, while people have been talking about profiteering, which is apparently accepted as something which has been and probably is going on—and nobody seems to deny that there has been profiteering—most of the indignation has been directed upon the exploiters of our food supply. My view is that the exploitations of the
food merchants are a light thing compared with the exploitations of the armament contractors. This has all been perfectly legal, and there is nothing to be said against it from that point of view, but there may be something to be said against it from the point of view of morals. I do not suggest that there is any connection between law and morals, but there is some connection between righteousness and those who are entrusted with the nation's resources and interests. It has been an appalling thing to contemplate this Ministry of Munitions, by virtue of one of the most terrible Acts that Parliament ever passed—the Munitions of War Act—constituted a sort of Luther's Charter, which enabled lawyers and contractors in the engineering trade to plunder the national resources to an extent which is appalling, and an extent of which one is inclined to think that not even the Ministry themselves are fully cognisant. I am not here to hold a brief for the operative, but his conduct in this matter appears favourable with that of his employer. There is a very great deal to be said in the way of criticism of the working-classes with respect to what engineer operatives have done in regard to our munitions supply during the last three or four years, and I am not apologising for them. I only suggest that a most pernicious example was set them, and they were foolish enough to follow it, and I regret it. What the workers have done, however, constitutes a light, and almost negligible thing besides what the high contractors of this country have done in the matter of war munitions supplies. If the Ministry of Munitions wants to justify itself to-day, let it insist upon the appointment of a public scrutiny into the whole business from its inception up to date.
In 1916 we were told, and we have been told periodically a dozen times since, that there was a shortage of skilled labour in the engineering trade. There never was any shortage at all of skilled labour in that trade. There was mal-distribution, mis-use, and abuse of skilled labour, and it was cornered wherever it could be cornered. The smaller contractors could not get skilled labour, not because there was a shortage, for there was a plethora in places where it was not wanted. I know this is a statement, and statements are no use without demonstrations. I propose to take the opportunity to do something in the way of demonstration. I represented to the right hon. Gentleman,
who was then the Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes), this view of the case, and this was before the right hon. Gentleman had become one of our four or seven highest War Lords. He was an old personal friend of mine, and I presented this view of the matter to him, and asked him if he would take it up in the House of Commons and ventilate it in some way. He agreed with my conclusions, and he asked the following question-in this House:
To ask the Prime Minister if further consideration has been given to the question of contract prices in regard to which promise of inquiry was made in a speech made by him on the 10th November; is he aware that there is a belief throughout the country, and especially amongst the working-classes, that Government contractors are keeping men inside their factories in excess of the number required and, therefore, only partially employed, because it pays them to do so; will he pay whether numbers of contractors, including owners of controlled establishments, are paid a percentage on wages; if so, to what extent is this practiced, and what percentage is paid; and will he, in the national interest, consider the advisability of an inquiry by a small Committees with a view to a full statement of the facts?
This was the answer given to my right hon. Friend's question:
With regard to the first part of the question, constant attention is given to the matter by the Departments concerned. With regard to the second part, I am not aware of the existence of this belief, which I am informed has no foundation in fact. With regard to the third part, I understand that this practice is followed in urgent cases, the percentage varying according to the circumstances. With regard to the last part of the question, such contracts made by the Admiralty are now being investigated by a Committee, presided over by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and I will inquire whether any useful purpose could be served by a corresponding inquiry in the Ministry of Munitions.
5.0. P.M.
Nothing was done. For my own part, I have availed myself of every opportunity on the platform and every avenue of publicity during the last three years available to me, to endeavour to direct public attention to the whole question of our war material supplies. It is the opinion of many competent engineers that in spite of statistical shop-window displays, from end to end the industry has had to struggle under a burden of officialism which has produced litle, if anything, but one intolerable and incessant irritation of the body politic, and all this time we have been called upon to make sacrifices. All this time the capitalists in the engineering and kindred trades have been stuffing their coffers with public money, and they
have been evading by some means the Excess Profits Duty which should have obtained. To-day the suggestion is to hand over to them as old iron machinery and equipment and buildings in Government factories worth £65,000,000. This does not seem to me to be a thing that the House should look upon lightly, and it should not permit it if it has any authority to prevent it. Our own sons and brothers have done all that could be expected of them and more than anyone could demand from them. They have given up life and hope and all that life means to the young and ardent for the sake of our immemorial mission to the world. We who live at home, too old to fight but not too old to toil and sorrow, are called upon to assist at the apotheosis of Barrabas and to sing loud Hosannas at the canonisation of the impenitent thief.

Sir W. PEARCE: We have heard an interesting speech from the hon. Member opposite, but the case is not quite so simple as he has presented it to the Committee. He has largely dealt with the expenditure of £65,000,000 as if it were exclusively upon explosives and chemicals.

Mr. ROSE: No, including.

Sir W. PEARCE: The sudden cessation of War found this country with an enormous supply of explosives and a number of factories manufacturing explosives. If the League of Nations is going to succeed and we are going to have reduced armaments, it is quite clear that this expenditure cannot be looked upon as a permanent asset for the production of those particular things. I do not think that the Minister would have very much trouble in proving that large factories like Gretna have paid for themselves by the large quantities of explosives which they have produced. I know a little about Gretna, and I want to point out some of the difficulties. It was established almost entirely for the production of cordite. Cordite, of course, was an absolute war necessity, and the quantity of cordite that Gretna has produced has been of enormous assistance to the Government. I think the Financial Secretary to the Ministry would have no difficulty in proving it that it has been money well spent. The hon. Gentleman asked what is to be done with it now. It is not so easy to say. Gretna consists of a very large area of 9,000 acres, and about
6,000 of them are good arable land. There is housing for nearly 14,000 or 15,000 people, and there is a certain amount of chemical and explosive plant. If the necessities of the country prove as small as we all of us wish, it will be extremely difficult to adapt a big plant like that at Gretna to the production of about 10 per cent. of its output. That is one of the difficulties that the Government have to face and that any purchaser would have to face. The chemical and explosive plant is constructed on such an enormous scale that it is almost certain that it would have to be worked at 20 per cent. of its speed, which would present great difficulty. The problem, therefore, is not so easy as at first appears. There are other things forwhich Gretna might be used which would be of great service to the country. The buildings and all the agricultural land might form the nucleus of a very large settlement for discharged soldiers and sailors, and with regard to this particular factory I think where the nation is likely to get hope is in fitting it into some future plans for this purpose.
I am sorry that my hon. Friend opposite was so very hard upon chemical manufacturers. I know a whole class of chemical manufacturers whose pre-war activities were altogether destroyed by the necessity of having to make chemicals for munitions of war. They devoted the whole of their resources during the War to the assistance of the State, and immediately the Armistice was signed there was an absolute and total cessation of Government orders. I know firms 90 per cent. of whose output went to the Ministry of Munitions for war purposes. Within a fortnight of the signing of the Armistice every one of those orders stopped. I do not think that the industry complains, but I want the House to understand that there is another side to the question, and that large sections of the chemical industry, by the change from war to peace conditions, have been left in an extremely difficult position. I sat on a Departmental Committee set up by this House regarding two sections of the chemical industry, fertilisers and sulphuric acid, and the Report of that Committee shows that there must be a surplus of 500,000 tons for which it is impossible to find use. I have risen to make these few remarks in order to suggest that these factories have fulfilled their purpose. They have saved the country money, and it is not so easy to find a special use for
them at the present time. I also want, in reply to the observations of my hon. Friend opposite, to let the House understand that the change from war to peace conditions in certain sections of the chemical industry has tended to produce great hardship.

Mr. R. YOUNG: I desire to raise one or two questions in relation to the disposal of the factories which have been built by the Ministry of Munitions. The Prime Minister, in the early days of the late election, speaking at Wolverhampton, and referring to a certain phase of industry, criticised the whole of the proceedings as sheer stupidity, and added that the marvel was that we had not the intelligence to put a stop to it. I am afraid that in disposing of these factories we are still pursuing this course of sheer stupidity, and that we are not evidencing an increased intelligence over that possessed by those responsible for the government of our country before the recent election. In 1915, when the country found itself in dire stress through the lack of the necessary war materials, the Ministry of Munitions was set up—set up more especially because of the inadequacy of private employers to supply the necessary things at that time. These factories have been built for the purposes of the War, and we are surprised to find that almost immediately after assuming the functions of office the present Government should proceed to dispense with them. They have been created at enormous expense, and have been equipped with the highest and best machinery possible. I am perfectly certain that if under normal circumstances I prior to the War—supposing it had been possible—it had been proposed to pursue the line of action that is to be pursued now, the country would have regarded it as a scandal of the gravest kind. Therefore, I would ask the hon. Gentleman to give us full information for the benefit of the House and the public as to what has been done in the direction of disposing of these factories, what is being done now, and what it is intended to do in the future. I want to know if some of this property has been sold privately to big profit-making concerns, and I want to know also under what conditions it is being sold and to what extent the Government are advantaged by its sale? I am perfectly aware that plant is being dispensed with, and I am afraid that what is left will be allowed by disuse to rust and wear out.
This policy of stopping the use of these factories or selling them to other people is bad enough, but it is also responsible in great measure for adding to the unemployment in the country at the present time. If ever the Government had any justification for dispensing with these national factories that justification has been considerbly lessened by the speech which we heard the other day from the Secretary of State for War, who told us what was going to be done in relation to maintaining a great Army. Many of these factories were created and maintained for the manufacture of things that are accessories to a great Army, and we hold that they should be retained as the property of the State. Those of us who sit on these benches hold that national property should be retained and developed in the interests of the State, and if that cannot be done we want full particulars as to how it is being disposed of. We want to know whether parts of that property had been pledged to particular firms, and if it had been pledged we want to know the purchase price arranged and the principles on which that purchase price was determined. I think that is information which we are entitled to expect from the hon. Gentleman I am of opinion there are in this House, strange to say, still many who believe in the free play of competition. Does the right hon. Gentleman know that in disposing of these factories competition is not getting free and fair play? Is he aware that what is likely to occur is that the competition that would be aroused by the Government going into the open market on every occasion is to a certain extent being stultified by a combination of interests who buy up your property in bulk, and themselves dispose of it afterwards? I need not remind the right hon. Gentleman that he has already an example of that in another Department. Ships were brought under that system and then separated among other people. I trust that that mistake will not be repeated in the particular case of the Ministry of Munitions. I am hopeful that that sort of patriotism will not be encouraged—the patriotism which is seeking to eliminate the competition of the nation in doing what it ought to do under present circumstances, in supplying the interests of the nation, in eliminating competition in many directions so that those who secure these properties may safeguard their own vested interests.
After the South African war there were South African scandals. I think during this War there has been a hut scandal. I trust we are going to have no more scandals in relation to matters of this kind. But, unfortunately, we have reason to be very, very suspicious of the action of the Government. A right hon. Member of the Government has told us that the Government does not intend to manufacture anything in the national factories, and that there will be no competition with private producers. We should like to know why. Are only those things to be kept in the hands of the State which benefit the commercial and higher classes? There is not a Member of this House who would say a word against the Post Office being retained in the hands of the nation. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that while we would not like to part with State control over the Post Office for private purposes, yet it is not the workers who alone have the great benefit of it—although they do benefit by State nationalisation, but it is also the public who benefit. The working classes send on an average one letter per week; the commercial classes average a hundred, in addition to many telegrams and a large number of parcels, and the result is that nationalisation has been a good thing for them. We think the time has come when some things ought to be retained in the hands of the State and so benefit the people of the country in a more direct manner. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to see that we are not to look on the Government as encouraging private profiteering to help the Government.
I have been told it is open to the trades unions and to co-operative societies to buy some of this property. Those of us who sit on these benches do not believe even that should be done; we hold that they should be retained in the hands of the State. If the property has to be sold it would be a good thing for the co-operators to have a share provided they get the thing they require and not the thing you want to give them; provided that they get that which will be useful to them in the conduct of their business now by procuring factories that might be readily converted for their purposes; otherwise you cannot say that they have an interest in this matter. As to the trade unions, the right hon. Gentleman must know that they were not formed for the purpose of becoming capitalistic concerns, and that money is in-
vested in the trade unions for the purpose of securing certain benefits for the workers. While such a proposal might have appealed to them twenty or thirty years ago, I am sure they will not be enmeshed in that net at this late stage of their history. Therefore, we ask for the fullest publicity in relation to the sale of these national factories. We should have information to enable us freely and fully in this House to discuss and criticise the action of the Government.
Let me give the right hon. Gentleman some reasons for their retention. We believe, rightly or wrongly, that these factories can be utilised for national purposes in many directions, and that it would help the Government greatly in keeping down the mass of unemployment which is occurring now, and which recurs at periodical times in this country. It would also at all events help the Government, by the proper utilisation of these factories, to secure some aid in lessening the great war debt now burdening the shoulders of the taxpayers, and to us it would mean that the Government retained in its hands some control over monopolist prices, and thus it would, in a certain direction, decrease the cost of living to the whole community. There are other advantages, such as the Government demonstrating clearly along many lines that they can be model employers of labour, and that they can retain and control in various directions private interests. These are some of the reasons which induce us to think that some of these factories, if not all, should be retained for the purposes of the State. We believe we could put them to various uses. We have heard from hon. Members opposite that they sympathise with the principle of railway nationalisation. Railway nationalisation, if it is carried out, would mean the control of factories for the building of railway stock for the railways. The factories could also be used by the Government to carry through the housing schemes. They could be used for the supply of motor vehicles for municipal and national transport. They could be used, and much more economically used, for the production of agricultural implements and for helping the great work of agricultural production in our country. These are some of the reasons why we think that the Government should not have disposed of such of its factories as it has sold, and why it should now put a period to its conduct in that direction. I can only find
two reasons why the Government are acting in this manner. Probably they want a certain income from these taxes now, to enable them to make some headway against the enormous burden they have to meet; but the second reason which has appealed to many people in this country as the correct one, is- that the Government is far more concerned with the interests of the private profiteer than for the welfare of the general community. We think they do not feel inclined to do anything in the direction of putting restraint upon those who have during the War so assiduously utilised the industries of our country in order to make more profit for themselves.
I hold in my hand a letter I received last night from the Property Owners' and Ratepayers' Association. On it there are five quotations from the Prime Minister's speech of the 23rd November last year. A wonderful man is our Prime Minister! He speaks for all of us. In the early days of the Treasury Conferences he told us he was the best Socialist amongst us, and now we have here a property owners' association quoting his speeches and asking me, for one, if I can say "Yes" to each quotation. I can say "Yes," provided we start from the same premises. Let me give the House one or two of these quotations. The Prime Minister said, "The difficulty is not with vested interests, but with vested prejudices." I hold that in the disposing of these national factories we are giving them away to those who desire to have them because of their vested prejudices against control by the State in the interests of the working classes, which mean doing away with the bolstering up of vested interests in the country. Then the Prime Minister tells us, "You must not take away another man's property." I assume everyone in the House agrees with that statement, hut after all the nation's property is the property of all of us, and you have no right to take away or get rid of the property of the nation without securing its full value in every direction. We are asking you to tell us whether you have received from the gentleman to whom you have disposed of these Government properties their full value, because the Prime Minister said it is right you should do so—that "whatever a man has got you should pay him full value for it." It is for these reasons we want to secure that the full value shall have been paid to the nation.
May I be allowed to say I trust that the war patriotism of which the nation is so proud, unfortunately sullied as it was by those who were rapacious in securing large profits for themselves at the expense of the people—may I be allowed to say I trust that that war patriotism which has brought us through so many difficulties during the last four and a half years, is going to be transformed into a peace patriotism in which the people who were co-operating together for war purpose will co-operate together for making the nation a better nation than it has ever been before? May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that there are gentlemen in this country who gave up for the time being at least the management of their own concerns and placed themselves at the disposal of the Government for the purpose of carrying through the necessary work of the country in those factories? Am I to take it now that because the War is over that same spirit of public service no longer exists in our country? Am I to understand you are disposing of these factories because you believe they cannot be efficiently maintained and utilised in the interests of the State? Am I to understand that they are being disposed of because you cannot secure men who, in your estimation, will make them gigantic successes for the interests of all? I do not believe such a thing is possible. I believe, if an appeal is made to them, these gentlemen will rise superior to any personal interest. I would regret to believe that those who have rendered yeoman service to the nation during the past four and a half years are now only too anxious to return to something whereby they can say, "We desire to add riches unto ourselves." I, therefore, in the name of my colleagues, hope we shall have a definite statement from the right hon. Gentleman, that we will not be kept in the dark in relation to these factories and the prices paid for them, and more especially also in relation to whether or not some of them were pledged before they were sold to certain individuals, or were privately sold without the public having any information on the matter.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir F. HALL: I have listened attentively to the speeches made this afternoon, and was rather struck with the suggestion that the whole of these factories should be worked from a national point of view. I thought they were taken over and constructed during a time of great emergency. I was par-
ticularly astounded to hear the speeches of the last speaker and the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr Rose), who said that the time had arrived when these factories should be used by the Government practically to oust the manufacturing and industrial class altogether from this country. On the other hand, the hon. Member for North Aberdeen is apparently so dissatisfied and so suspicious of the Government, or of anything the Government may have to deal with, that he suggested that, in consequence of mal-administration, a Committee should be set up in order to go through the whole of the accounts of the Ministry of Munitions. I do not think the House generally will pay much attention to arguments such as that. I have risen this afternoon because I think that if a Member makes a statement in this House which is not correct, although he believes it to be correct at the time he makes it, the first duty that devolves upon him, if he finds it to be incorrect, is to state plainly that he has made a statement against a Department which he is not able to substantiate. I am in that position this afternoon. I stated in the House recently that motor cars and motor lorries—I made the statement that I had been so informed, and that the information had been given me from a most reliable source in the City of London—had been sold in a sort of block sale in a good many cases, instead of what one would expect to have been done by a business Department, putting them up and selling them in separate lots. I put down a question in the House and received a full reply from the Deputy-Minister of Munitions. He placed at my disposal the figures of the Ministry of Munitions and invited me to go carefully into them. I take this opportunity of thanking him for having done so. Nothing could be more frank than the manner in which he placed these figures before me.
While I admit that I was wrong, and that the information which had been given to me was incorrect, I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman that, in giving information in this House when a particular question is asked, and in such circumstance, his officers should show the greatest care in compiling the figures, and it is advisable that the information so given should be correct, because, if it is incorrect in one item, it is likely to be incorrect in another. As my hon. Friend knows, we found a sort of block which
was given as 125 motor lorries when the answer given in the House was that there were twenty-five motor lorries which had been sold. We found a block of 125 motor lorries which realised £18,000, or an average of £144 each, which undoubtedly was a mistake. We added up the figures, and subtracted them, and, with the exception of one item of motor cycles, my hon. Friend will agree that it was absolutely impossible to identify any set of figures with the reply that had been given. My contention is that there has not been that care and attention there should have been in the Ministry of Munitions Department in the past with regard to the manner in which their accounts have been carried out. I hope that more attention and care will be exercised. We have heard in this House, and we know full well, that accounts have been paid over and over again, although the money has eventually been refunded. We have heard of open cheques that have been conveyed by officials of the Department being found on public highways. That is not the sort of thing which is likely to secure confidence from the people of this country. We have been told that it has been impossible to keep accounts simply and solely because there have not been accountants, and that we have had to put up with a sort of temporary assistance. That may be quite right. Undoubtedly, in many cases, it has been right, but the Government have not taken the necessary steps to place at the disposal of the Ministry of Munitions the large amount of good labour and the number of accountants that could have been supplied if they had taken the proper steps to secure them.
I have one instance which, no doubt, is one of many. I had brought to my notice the case of a soldier who, unfortunately, had become a casualty. The particulars of his case were sent to me. He happened to be a chartered accountant, and during the time when the Ministry were crying out for proper accountants I ventured to bring to their notice this specific case, thinking that in the ordinary course of events, as business men, they would have said they would utilise that labour, because where it was placed at the time it was practically useless. The Ministry did nothing of the kind. They said this man was under the War Office, and they could not, in any circumstances, ask the War Office to give them a man who was serving as a soldier, notwithstanding the fact that he was a duly qualified accountant. That
sort of thing must be stopped. People who can be utilised for special work should be so used, and the various Departments should make an effort to dovetail their work, so that we should not have one Department pulling against another. I am not blaming my hon. Friend, but I am blaming his Department. I hope that the mistakes which have occurred in the past will be reduced very much in the future.
We have heard this afternoon hon. Members express dismay with respect to the sale of many of these national factories. I would rather congratulate my hon. Friend. The sooner these properties are disposed of, provided reasonable prices are obtained, the better it will be. They were erected and utilised for specific purposes. We are all glad to know that the necessity which did arise does not exist at the present time. But I would like to draw my hon. Friend's attention to a case that occurred only the day before yesterday. There was a factory at Barnsley—the Barnsley Shell Works—which was advertised for sale, and in the ordinary course of events a large number of business men were interested. They came from all parts of the country to Barnsley to be present at what was supposed to be an auction sale. Imagine their dismay when, at the last moment, they were told, "Oh, gentlemen, we are sorry, but we are unable to dispose of this property today!" When they asked for a reason, it became apparent that it was another case of one Government Department pulling against another. They were told, "We are sorry to say we have not been able to arrange with the other Department"—which I believe was the War Office—"with regard to a question of the title deeds relating to this property". We do not want that sort of thing. If business people get into their heads the idea that they are going on a wild-goose chase they will not be present at the next sale. I believe it is my hon. Friend's desire to obtain as much as he can for the properties of which his Department has to dispose, but it is not going the right way to obtain the highest price if, when you get the people there, you simply say to them, "There is no sale to-day." I hope that with regard to the thirteen others which are to be sold in the immediate future there will be no such trouble. We fully appreciate the difficulties my hon. Friend's Department has had to contend with in the past. We know full well that
the Department was a sort of scrappy machinery that had to be got into working order quickly. The machinery was eventually brought into efficient working order. In disposing of these various factories, we do not want the Department to do anything which will be detrimental to obtaining the largest possible price for them. The last speaker referred to the question of the unemployment which is already springing up. You are not going to improve unemployment by placing the whole of these big industries throughout the country under the Government. The less you have of Government interference in commerce—and we have had plenty of it during the last four and a half years—the better it will be for the country generally. I do not want the working men, or the middle-class, or any part of the community to be led away with the idea that the nationalisation of all these various industries will bring about the millennium for the working classes. I hope I have made it plain that I put the question on the information which was given to me, and I did so perfectly bonâ fide. I am not desirous of making any suggestion against my hon. Friend without just cause, and I have taken the earliest opportunity that has presented itself to withdraw the statement, and I hope he and his Department will be satisfied that I have done it in a full and just manner.

Mr. KELLAWAY: The Debate so far has ranged over many activities of the Department, and I hope in my reply I shall succeed in covering the points raised by the critics of the Department, even if I do not satisfy them. The speech of the opener was remarkable in many ways. I think it was a maiden speech. If it was, I should like to congratulate the hon. Member on the variety, the novelty and the force of the views which he put before the Committee. But I do not quite understand what an hon. Member who takes that particular view is doing on the Labour Benches. It was the speech of a high old crusted Tory and a soured individualist. I have heard precisely that sort of speech from the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), but I never expected to hear it from the Labour Benches in a new Parliament. What was the burden of his speech? Sweep away the burden of officialdom. Away with it! What has the Government to do with the control of industry? What is the meaning of the Government interfering with the
production of agricultural implements? Why is the Government bothering about this, and why is it bothering about that? We heard all that from the high old Tories who used to represent the interests of capital in this House. If it was necessary for me to reply to a good part of the speech which came from my hon. Friend, who also spoke for Labour, and who took what I regard as the usual Labour view, I think I might set the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Rose) in opposition to him. I should like to say to the hon. Member (Mr. Young), who undoubtedly put before the Committee arguments which require a considered answer, with what pleasure I heard him. He and I have met on more than one occasion in connection with the Ministry of Munitions. I do not think he would be likely to share the view taken by the opener on this part of the subject, that there was never any need for the Ministry of Munitions and all its works are evil. I acknowledge with gratitude the part my hon. Friend has on more than one occasion played in helping to smooth away industrial troubles and to keep the wheels of the munitions industry smoothly running. I am certain we shall all look forward to the part he will play in future in our Debates.
I think it will be necessary, if we are properly to understand the case which the Government has to put in opposition to that put by the Labour party this afternoon, that I should take a more general view than has been taken so far of the work which is covered by the Ministry's share of this Vote. We have now completed the work for which the Ministry was set up. The hon. Member (Mr. Rose) will at least rejoice over that. He found no need for the Ministry of Munitions. If he had had his way and there had been no Ministry of Munitions the industries of this country would now be run by the Junkers of the German Empire. I hope that is not a prospect which would fill him with any satisfaction. We have completed the main task for which the Ministry of Munitions was set up. It no longer has to engage or is engaging in the production of great masses of war material, but the very success with which the Ministry of Munitions concentrated the industries of this country on the production of munitions worthy of the valour of our Army, and adequate to their numbers, presented us with a problem of
unparalleled difficulty on Armistice Day. Because of its human reaction it was a problem in many ways even more difficult than that of building up the great munitions supplies. I suppose if we thought of money only the best course the Government could have taken on 11th November would have been to say, "Not a single pound more of munitions must be produced," to put a stop immediately by a stroke of the pen to the production of munitions or of any work in connection with munitions. But to have done that I am quite sure would have raised industrial and social problems of a gravity which this country at that time could not have afforded to face. We had outstanding on Armistice Day 33,000 separate and distinct contracts, with an unliquidated liability of £312,000,000, and the first duty on which we had to concentrate was the liquidation of that great mass of contracts. The work has been chiefly in the hands of Sir Gilbert Garnsey, one of the great business men whom the President of the Local Government Board brought into the Ministry, and I am glad to be able to say—and I think it will be acknowledged that it was a great achievement—that in regard to those 33,000 contracts, on 28th February, only 5,740 were left outstanding or without notice having been given in regard to their termination. That is an achievement for which Sir Gilbert Garnsey and his Department are entitled to the public gratitude. I am not at present in a position to say what is the present liability of the Government in regard to those contracts, but the saving which has been effected on what would have been our liability if the contracts had been completed is something very substantial.
The total expenditure, in regard to which so much criticism has been made by the Ministry since its establishment up to the date of the Armistice, was £1,839,000,000 and I should not be at all surprised—no man in the House would be surprised—if in connection with the expenditure of that money there have been proved cases of profiteering such as those which have been so seriously criticised. Of course there must have been such cases, but the Department would have been criminal if it had not done its best to check profiteering and to provide machinery to make it difficult. It can never be disputed that the Department provided the most effective machinery which has yet been discovered for preventing profiteering. When the present Prime Minister and the
President of the Local Government Board established the system of cost accounting, they provided the best machinery yet discovered for the prevention of profiteering. The President of the Local Government Board put that work into the hands of Sir Hardman Lever and Sir John Mann, and an estimate recently worked out in the Department shows that if our contracts up to the date of the Armistice had all been placed at the prices prevailing before the system of cost accounting was introduced we should have had to pay £300,000,000 more than we actually obtained the contracts for. I do not say that increased bulk of production would not have effected a reduction in the costs which were being paid, but it is certain that this system of cost accounting has been responsible for an almost complete check on profiteering and a very substantial reduction in the prices the country has had to pay for its munitions. The contractors at first were very suspicious of this system, for although it had been a common industrial practice in America for some years, it was foreign to the practice of this country. I believe to-day we can say that it has become an integral part of the method of most up-to-date industrial firms, and it will play a very large part in improving the industrial efficiency of this country. I think we have a complete reply to any charge which may be made against us as to indifference on the part of the Department in regard to profiteering. We have provided machinery which has been copied by industrial firms and other Government Departments, the most complete yet discovered in checking profiteering.
The first new duty put on the Department was that of liquidating the contracts, and we have now to do the best we can to dispose of what remains over of the great mass of material, part of which was provided with the £1,800,000,000 of the people's money. The Government has been attempting for some time to devise satisfactory machinery for securing that the surplus stores of Government Departments were disposed of to the best public advantage. I think towards the end of 1917 the Government put upon Lord Salisbury and Sir Howard Frank the work of supervising or co-ordinating the activities of different Departments, but the weakness of that arrangement was that that organisation was entirely outside any existing Government Department, and the Government Departments continued to go on in their own sweet way, each dis-
posing of what it regarded as surplus according to its own methods. So it was decided on 15th November that one Department alone should have the responsibility for the disposal of surplus stores, and that Department was to be the Ministry of Munitions, which is to develop into the Ministry of Supply. The responsibility put upon the Ministry necessarily made us the greatest selling organisation in this country, and probably in the world, and when Lord Inverforth became Minister of Munitions on 14th January he set to work to create an organisation to carry out the responsibilities which had been put upon his Department, Particulars of that organisation have appeared in the Press. The details were fully given in the "Times," and I think, although it is inevitable that mistakes will be made, the Committee will agree with me that at any rate the commonest and the most inexcusable of all mistakes has not been made, that of putting the work into the hands of men who do not understand it. I think we can claim for the organisation for the disposal of the surplus property of the Government that every class of store has been put for disposal into the hands of men whose life business it has been to deal in that particular class of store. Some twenty separate sections have been created, and a Controller was put at the head of each and he is advised by a committee of men whose whole business it has been to deal in those stores. I think it so important that the House and the country should have confidence in the competence of the organisation which is to dispose of these great masses of Government stores that, if I find there is any general desire for it amongst Members, I shall be glad to circulate a statement of what the organisation is and of the class of work which falls to each particular controller.
6.0. P.M.
Various estimates have been made of the value of the goods which the Government will have to dispose of through this organisation. Those estimates have varied from £200,000,000 to £1,000,000,000. While I could hope that the larger figure is more exact, I am afraid my experience will require me to say that the actual result must be nearer the lower figure. The stores are of the most diversified character. They vary from tanks to tintacks, from guns to glue, from petroleum to propellors—in fact, the catalogue for the goods for which I am now responsible to
this House will be as large almost as the "Encyclopædia Britannica" and as varied in character, and they are scattered over three Continents. I am dwelling on the point because I think it is a reply to some of the criticism which has already been expressed in the form of questions put to me in the House. We have now surplus stores in Egypt, Palestine, the Levant, Salonika, East Africa, Italy, in this country, and in other parts of the world, and it is impossible to lay down one general rule in regard to the disposal of these surplus stores which would be applicable to the variety of their character, and the variety of the circumstances under which they have to be disposed of. I think the organisation that has been set up does secure, as far as any organisation does secure, that the interest of the taxpayers of this country are being safeguarded. I was asked whether I would not give an undertaking that we would only sell factories or other surplus stores by public auction. To give any such undertaking would be seriously to prejudice the public interest. It does not follow that at public auction you get the highest price. Public auction is as likely to reveal the weakness as the strength of the market, and if it were known we were confined to sale by public auction we should also be exposed to the danger of rings being formed which it would be exceedingly difficult to break through. We must retain power to sell either by public auction or public tender, and in some cases by private treaty. It is in regard to these sales by private treaty that there is real danger of abuse—it may be by a dishonest official. We require in regard to every sale by private treaty that it shall be recorded and the record sent in week by week to the Board of every such sale and of the reasons why it was necessary for that sale to be made by private treaty. I think we should take the utmost precautions possible to prevent sale by private treaty being abused. I think the Committee will see that there are bound to be cases where sale by private treaty enables the Government to secure the best possible price. Let us take the case of the farmer who has on his land some barbed wire. You will get a much better price out of that man if you arrange a reasonable price with him than if you pulled down the barbed wire and timber and carried them away to some centre where you will sell it by public auction.
That man knows the value of it. We must retain the liberty to sell by private treaty. I want to come to the question raised by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Dulwich. He completely withdrew the story to which he gave currency in this House the other day, that at a recent sale of motor-cars nine motor lorries had been sold in one lot, and before the buyer left the room he sold four of them for as much as he paid for the nine. I am sure the Committee will be glad to know my hon. and gallant Friend completely withdrew that story. I understand the gentleman who informed the gentleman who told my gallant Friend is now on the high seas. Anyhow I satisfied myself that there was no foundation for that story. I showed my Friend the record of every sale made by auction since 11th November, and there was not one instance in which motor cars had been sold except individually, and that will continue to be our practice except in very exceptional circumstances. The only circumstance I can at present visualise which would justify us in selling more than one car or lorry in a lot would be where you have two or three cars of foreign make very severely deteriorated or damaged, and where it was necessary to get one decent car to combine the three in separate parts. In those circumstances you would be justified in selling more than one in a lot. I was glad to hear the line, taken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles when he opened this afternoon. He said Government expenditure is controlled not so much by the Government as by the House of Commons. I was glad to hear him say that because it was a reply to the pressure which was being put on me from various parts of the House to mix up philanthropy with the business of disposing of surplus stores. I hope I shall have the backing of the House in resisting this sort of pressure. The cases put are all cases which naturally appeal to us. I am asked why do not you allow the broken soldier to obtain his motor bicycle or his motor car on special terms? Why do not you allow the allotment holder to have special terms and reduced prices in buying agricultural implements? And so it has gone on. I hope the House will support the Ministry in saying that we have one duty and one duty only, and that is to secure for the people of this country the greatest pos-
sible return which can be obtained for the many millions of money which have been so freely poured out during the War. I believe there is an opportunity of getting back something very substantial, not running into fancy figures, to which I referred just now, but some really substantial returns to the people of this country for the expenditure they so freely made. But if we start making exceptions I would like the hon. Member listening to me to have this in his mind, when he is asked to put a question on the Order Paper by this section or that, that when we start to make exceptions allowing them to have public property at less than its market value there is no knowing where that will stop. Now I come to the point particularly imposed on me by my hon. Friends opposite—that is to say, the policy of the Government in regard to the sale of national factories. I know how deep is the feeling which has been aroused in Labour circles by the action of the Government in deciding that they would dispose of some at any rate, and certainly of the great majority, of these national factories. There are130 national factories properly so-called; there are a large number of others, which have been loosely described as national factories, but which are not national factories which the Government is free to sell. The public expenditure on the provision, building, and equipment of these factories was £60,000,000. The balance of £5,000,000 of the figure of £65,000,000 which I gave the other day was spent on that other class of factory which I do not regard as being strictly described as "national." Sixty millions of money have been spent on these 130 national factories, and I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for North Aberdeen, who thought that Gretna Green, instead of making explosives, should have been kept for clandestine marriages—I can assure him that the expenditure on Gretna was included in the total I gave. Those factories have been divided into three classes. The first class consists of seven factories, which it is decided must be kept under Government control to supply munitions for the post-bellum Army, and possible military emergencies. The second class consists of fifteen factories. These factories may be leased or sold, but may only be leased or sold under conditions which enable the Government practically to reacquire possession if a war emergency should arise. The third
class consists of 110 factories. A number of these will be retained to be available for the Government in the event of the Government deciding to produce goods for its own use. The majority—and I want to be quite frank with my Friends of the Labour party—the majority of this group of 110 will be disposed of, as rapidly as we can secure fair prices, to firms who will utilise them for increasing the productive capacity of the country. There remain thirty factories. These factories will, for the present, be retained for storage purposes. I have heard that described as a very wasteful use of national property. I hope the Committee will believe me that if they consider the problem as I have to do they will see it is not wasteful. There is a great demand in the country to-day for the storage of great quantities of munitions and surplus stores which are now coming back to this country from France, and other theatres of war, and where it is not convenient to sell them the storage does not exist outside some of these old gas, filling, and other national factories. It would be an exceedingly expensive proceeding to have to build storage for these factories now, and they are in fact being put to good use in being used for storage. By the time the necessity for storage has passed it will be possible, I hope, to dispose of them at better prices than can be realised now. My hon. Friend the second speaker from the Labour Benches has evidently got the idea, probably from the Socialist Press—a quite extravagant and mistaken idea—of what the Government has so far done in selling national factories. I have received Socialist newspapers, and read in them with great comfort on Sunday morning, a picture drawn of a Government composed of the friends of profiteers like those who now sit on this bench, eagerly handing over the people's birthright to more unscrupulous profiteers who have not succeeded in getting on to the Government Bench. I have to say that is quite a fancy picture. Up to the present time, so far from us having handed over Government property in this reckless condition, there has been one national factory sold, and that transaction was completed at half-past three this afternoon. I am going to give the House the figures, and I hope it will reassure the hon. Member who is under the impression that we are selling the people's birthright for a mess of pottage. This factory cost £133,000 to build. This afternoon the signature has been put to the agreement under which we get
£140,000 for that factory. There are very exceptional circumstances in connection with the factory which make it a good bargain for the firm who bought it. There are two other cases in which, although the transaction has not yet been actually completed, negotiations have reached a very advanced stage. On one particular point, which was put to me by my hon. Friend—in the case of each of those factories the firms had an obligation or an option to purchase. I am not at the moment attempting to justify the terms of the obligation or option, though I think I could do so quite easily if necessary. In those two cases the sale is practically completed, but I do not give the figures.

An HON. MEMBER: Those are the only two?

Mr. KELLAWAY: The only two which have reached an advanced stage. I do not give the figures, because, obviously, while negotiations were going on it would not be right to publish the figures on which those negotiations were based. But my hon. Friends opposite criticise entirely from top to bottom the policy of parting with national factories. They say that you should retain these national factories for the use of the country. The policy of the Government has already been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Sir E. Geddes). It is that the Government do not propose to use these factories for competing with private traders.

Sir C. HENRY: Where has the right hon. Member for Cambridge announced it?

Mr. KELLAWAY: It was outside this House. I suppose it is within the recollection of most Members, and it has been repeated since. The Government do not intend to use these national factories for private trading purposes. That is what is attacked, as I understand, by the Labour party; and if they were here administering the government of this country they would use these national factories for the purpose of competing with private traders. If that really is what they mean, I am certain that they must realise that that does not involve merely the use of those factories, but that it would require a reconstruction of your industrial system from top to bottom. Is this a time in which a body of responsible men would venture to embark on so hazardous an ex-
periment? That is what the young lions of the Socialist party are roaring for. They want to see the Government run all these factories, as they say, in the interests of the State. But it is not what the great majority of the people want. It is not what the great majority of the men, who returned Labour Members to this House, want. There is not a class of man in this country more "fed up," If I may use the colloquialism, with Government control than the British working man. He regards Government control and Government interference with industry as one of the necessary evils of war and thinks that the sooner it can be got rid of the better it will be for everybody. I do not want to press that too far, but it is a fact that is bound to influence and control the policy of any Government. The argument on which this case is based is, in my view, entirely fallacious. The case which is put to the Government is, that as these national factories served the country during the War, why should not you use them in order to help the country during the peace?
That is the substance of the Labour case which is presented. But there is this fallacy. During the War there was one buyer. That buyer was the Government. There was no other. Production was for one purpose, the purpose of war. The Government was all powerful in regard to the distribution of material. It could control what it pleased. It could issue its orders for priority. But now that we come to ordinary conditions of peace there is a total and fundamental change. Instead of one buyer, the Government, the industries of this country have to satisfy the multifarious needs of millions of buyers living under conditions of peace, and to satisfy the needs of a nation which is dependent for a great part of its living on its export trade. What would be the position of a Government if it decided to embark on this very hazardous experiment in regard to industries which have to depend on export trade? As a member of the Government, I am flattered by the confidence which the Labour party display in our ability successfully to run the in-industries of this country. It is most complimentary, and I hope that it is based on sound experience of the efficiency with which so far we have worked. But for a moment, closing my eye to this flattering and beatific vision, and looking at realities by an inward vision, I must say that I am appalled at the prospect of the Govern-
ment having to go out on the market and compete with the producers, whether in Manchester, Northampton, Bedford, Bristol, or Glasgow. The Government would be beaten every time, and there are no men who would be quicker to protest, or would protest with more vehemence, than the men engaged in those great staple industries which have returned hon. Gentlemen opposite to represent them in this House.
There is another class of possible use for our national factories different in character from that to which I have been referring. The case is put, by men who have thought out the problem more closely that though it is not desirable to use national factories for the purpose of private trading, yet we should use them for the purpose of producing things which the Government itself needs. That is a more difficult case to meet. I am no pedant in regard to Government activities or Government entry into industries. I take no academic or pedantic view. From the time when I was connected with municipal work in this country I have always thought that there were great classes of activity in regard to which the Government and the municipalities had particular responsibilities, and in regard to some of which they ought to take them under their control. So I take no pedantic view on this question, and I want the Labour party both in this House and in the country, which is so profoundly interested in this question, to realise that it is not a question which can be settled by phrases or formulæ, but that it is a practical proposition divided into many sections, each one of which must justify itself as a working proposition. The Government has shown already that it is not pedantic. It is prepared to try proposals of this kind where there is a chance of success. We have already placed certain work at Woolwich Arsenal, not ordinary work but work for Government Departments, such as a certain number of milk churns for the Board of Agriculture and motor lorry repairs for the War Office, and a number of orders for doors are going to be placed there in connection with the Government building programme. So there has been no pedantry about it. What the Government desire to obtain is proof that these things can be made satisfactorily, cheaply, and so as to increase the total amount of employment in the country. Unless this
State industry can prove that it can justify itself then this State enterprise is damned at the very beginning.
I would like here to acknowledge the assistance which has been given to us at Woolwich Arsenal by some of the gentlemen there and a small committee of workmen in working out a scheme there. They have recognised that it is an experiment and if it is to be more than an experiment it must justify itself as a commercial proposition. But we must not draw too far-reaching conclusions from the experience at Woolwich. Woolwich is singular among our national factories in having practically complete engineering equipment, thoroughly varied in character. It is almost the only one of our national factories which has so varied an equipment. We were also justified in making this experiment on this limited scale in Woolwich because it was necessary to keep Woolwich Arsenal in being as a producing unit in the event of any military emergency arising. In regard to most of our national factories, to which I have been referring, there is hardly one outside Woolwich which could be used for producing goods for the Government as they stand. A certain part of the plant would be superfluous and would have to be replaced by new plant bought from other factories or newly made. I want to take some trouble in regard to this case which has been put because, whatever may be the view of the Committee about it, I ask them to believe that there are large numbers of people in the country who think that we shall be betraying our trust unless we use these factories for Government needs, and it is worth while giving full attention to the point of view of those who hold this view. I hope therefore that the Committee will not think that I am spending too much time on that branch of the case.
This is the real difficulty in the way of the State utilising State factories for State purposes. The needs of the Government for any one commodity with the exception of Post Office requirements, to which I will refer in a moment, are not sufficiently great to enable you to produce on an economic basis. That is the fundamental difficulty with which we are faced. Whether it is a question of turning out motor lorries or furniture for Government offices, or whatever it may be our needs are not sufficiently great at any one time to cause us to produce in a quantity sufficiently great' to enable us to compete with the private
manufacturer. Efficient production depends on the production of particular articles in great quantities, and if the Government were to set up or use one of our national factories for the purpose of producing, say, a thousand of one particular type of article, it could not hope to compete with the private firms which were producing tens of thousands of that article, and if we were to produce economically we should have to produce far more than the Government would need, and that would mean that we should have to sell the balance on the market, set up a sales organisation and enter into competition with the private firms of Manchester and all other parts of the country. That is a prospect which I, personally, should not contemplate with equanimity.
I believe that the more this problem is thought out the more it will be realised that there are only two alternatives for the State in such a case. It must either take entire control of a particular industry or it must leave it entirely alone. I believe that there is no half-way house. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] I see that my hon. Friends agree. I see that is what they are going to do, and I am glad that they have let us know. I am trying to meet the argument and put the practical difficulties, at any rate, which face us, and I say that there is no halfway house. You must either have State control of an industry from top to bottom or you must leave it entirely alone. I have no objection to State enterprise, but you are not going to solve this problem by fiddling little experiments of this kind, of the Government producing a few things here and a few things there for its own use. That is not how this problem is going to be solved. You have got to solve it quite at the other end, and if this were the occasion I should be glad to give my suggestion with regard to that. As to the proposal to use these national factories either for the purpose of competing with private trade or for the Government's own use it is one which will not stand examination. The last point on this aspect of the subject which I desire to put is with regard to the utilisation of the national factories as a panacea for unemployment. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member favour that policy as a panacea for unemployment. It is not lack of capacity for production in this country which accounts for the present unemployment. There is ample capacity, ample
machine capacity. That is not the difficulty. The difficulty at present is lack of orders.

Mr. SEXTON: And lack of land.

Mr. KELLAWAY: The difficulty is lack of orders, that is the trouble, and lack of orders is very largely due to want of confidence in the minds of those men who were responsible for the control and direction of industry in the past. I might become more controversial than I have so far been if I were to attempt to state what I regard as being the root causes of that lack of confidence. But that really is it. The Government, in my conviction, were right when they decided that the best and quickest way to get rid of unemployment was not to try these tinkering little experiments of using national factories for producing a few things which could be produced better by men producing them in greater quantity, but to get the wheels of industry running smoothly once more, and to restore confidence to all interests connected with industry, and to get us back once again to the practice and the confidence of peace days. That was what prompted the Government to decide that the best thing to do with these factories was to put them into the hands of men who could rapidly and efficiently use them in order to find employment. I am certain, if that problem had to be faced as a Government by hon. Members sitting opposite, they would have been forced to come to the same conclusion, so far as it was a problem for dealing with unemployment, that this Government has come to; that the quickest way to deal with it was to put those factories into the hands of men who could most easily and rapidly make use of them for increasing the productive capacity of this country as a whole. [An HON. MEMBER: "Without Orders!"]
Reference was made to the suggestion that some of these factories might be bought by trade unions and co-operative societies. I understood my hon. Friend spoke with certain disrespect of that proposal. I regret it. I believe that there is a possibility here of providing a means of solving some questions. [An Hon. Member: "Piecemeal!"] I care not as to that because the man who sets out to reform things in this world except piecemeal, or bit by bit, comes to disaster. There is no other way of solving troubles in this world except bit by bit and piecemeal. I do not intend to treat this suggestion with
disrespect. I and glad to say we have now before us a proposal that one of the best of our factories should be utilised by an organisation of trade unions and others where the interest of the workers will be equal with the interests of the employers, the employers being in this case the representatives of the workmen. If that proposal materialises, as I hope it will materialise, the Ministry of Munitions will be prepared to consider it sympathetically and to do everything it can to give the experiment a fair chance. I hope we shall have more of such proposals so that labour can show what it can do in running the industries of the country. No doubt they will be able to do it very much better than it has been done in the past, and be able to relegate the old employing classes to the limbo of useless things, to which I think they all feel they ought to be relegated. I conclude, then, by saying that the policy of the Government was based on the conviction that the best and quickest way of getting rid of unemployment was to restore industry to its accustomed channels. The work of the Ministry of Munitions has changed in character, but I think it has become more difficult than it was before. None of us need expect to get much glory out of the sales of certain stores. I hope that the organisation set up will succeed in protecting the country from most of the abuses to which our attention was directed after the South African War. We cannot promise that no mistakes will be made, but I am quite certain that anybody who examines the organisation that has been created will agree that the work has been put into the hands of men who know it, and that we have taken every possible precaution to guard against the possibility of abuses. Our one desire is in that work to secure the best returns to the people of this country that we can secure to them for the millions of money which they so lavishly spent during the War.

Mr. CLYNES: My hon. Friend need not have expressed any regrets to the Committee as to the time he has taken up in the deliverance of a most interesting speech. In that speech there were many patches of most useful information, but in that speech also there was a complete absence of any appreciation of the main points put by my hon. Friend from this side, who expressed the Labour point of view. I want to express in their name our disappointment at what we regard as
the failure of the Government, and it may be particularly of the Department for which the hon. Gentleman has just spoken, to handle effectively and to handle efficiently the intermediary stage in which we still find ourselves as between, the state of war and the state of peace. I would ask my hon. Friend to remember what is the effect of such an answer as has so far been given upon the Labour mind in the country, which is looking for much more hope and assurance than it has yet received from several spokesmen of the Government who have dealt with these industrial questions. I can assure my hon. Friend that all of us on this side of the House share his view as to the evil results of the state of unsettlement of the country, and as to the desirability of settling down to a state of peaceful industry and productiveness in the general national interests. I am going to put a definite question to illustrate what is in our mind. Is it better for a Government to pay in benefit nearly £1,000,000 per week of State money than, to spend any similar such sum in efficiently conducting, if only for the time being, these State factories, these great centres of employment, which were so busy during the War, in order that some 700,000 persons, who for doing nothing are receiving unemployment benefit, should day by day be producing some useful result and be properly employed? That is a fair question which I think we are entitled to submit to the Government, and to require, an answer. There is really no use in debating this question upon lines which attempt a close adherence to the doctrines of political economy. My hon. Friend has so frequently departed from those doctrines whilst appearing to sustain the case for them that he has been driven back time after time to conditions of expediency as against principle. We understand from one part of his speech that it is quite wrong for a Government to enter into competition with private traders, and he has declared that it is the policy of the Government that that must not be done.

Mr. KELLAWAY (indistinctly heard): Not wrong, but inexpedient.

Mr. CLYNES: The hon. Gentleman told us that we had a statement from one of the principal Ministers to the effect that it was the declared policy of the Government not to enter into competition with private trade, and yet the hon. Gentleman
told us that the War Office and other State Departments are purchasing directly from certain of the Government factories products of those factories in which are employed State workmen paid by State wages. If those workmen did not produce those goods it is quite clear the State Department would have to be supplied by the ordinary private trader producing the required article in the usual way. Therefore it would appear to be right for the State to organise certain limited supplies for itself so long as it supplies them to other State Departments who would be receiving those necessary articles from private trades, if they were not made under State auspices. What are we to say to the suggestion that it is quite right and proper for trade unions to enter into competition with private traders, and to enter into such competition with the encouragement and assistance of the Government? We have been tempted by attractive offers to establish ourselves as manufacturers and as captains of industry. Our answer is that just as this House properly keeps itself within its "Rules and Standing Orders and discharges the functions for which it exists, so must the trade unions keep within their rules and standing orders and perform the special functions for which, they were brought into being. They were not created to be trading companies or to engage in various private enterprises. They have a special duty to discharge towards their various members, and they are doing it in their own way by improving the wage and labour conditions of their various members. I regret, therefore, that my hon. Friend has failed to give us any comfort by his revelation of policy on behalf of the Government this evening. Let me press the necessity of the Government giving further consideration to this matter from the standpoint of relieving the present tension in the working-class mind with regard to unemployment. The Prime Minister this week once more has emphasised what is perhaps the principal underlying cause of the unrest in the labour world to-day. It is the dread of unemployment. It is not merely the suffering which results from unemployment at the moment; it is the fear still lingering in the mind that that state of idleness may be continued, and may even grow worse. Economic doctrines, therefore, might well for the time being, be set aside to ease
this situation, because even if the State could not be a very perfect competitor of the private trader, it would be worth the while of the State, as a temporary industrial measure, if no more, to keep a very large number of these persons at work, and instead of paying them, as I have said, a considerable sum per week for doing nothing at all, to employ them until private enterprise was able to absorb them in the usual way.
My hon. Friend answers that the real underlying cause of unemployment is the absence of demand for work. We have only to turn to the absence of house accommodation, to the state of our streets and roads, to any one of those numerous evidences of arrears of the needs and amenities of life to see how incomplete is the statement of my hon. Friend that there is no demand for work, and that that is the cause of unemployment. The Government has undertaken the responsibility of dealing with the housing problem. It has a very close relationship with the various municipal bodies, and these municipal bodies might very well, jointly with the State, turn immediately to the performance of some of that work which has become most urgent in order to improve the streets and roads of our numerous towns and cities; so I press this view upon my hon. Friend as one which deserves more attention, because the Government cannot go on interminably paying this idle money at the cost, as I say, of nearly a million a week to the purse of the State, it cannot go on merely living in hope of the labour market improving. We cannot unfortunately look to any very speedy settlement of the industrial and social life of countries like Russia and Germany, and other countries, countries which must improve their own conditions of internal peace before we can expect to find ourselves properly settled down to a continuance of our usual peaceful industrial pursuits. Therefore, if only as a temporary and as an urgent measure, I submit that it has become the business of the Government to set aside these theories and to overlook even what we have regarded hitherto as fixed and unalterable principles of economic doctrines, and so to organise the State service and its present idle factories and idle stores as to set to work a large number of people who by employment could be producing many of the things which are now wanted for home
comforts instead of receiving the weekly dole, large though it may be, from the public Treasury.

Major BARNES: It is difficult to reconcile all that one hears in this House, and it is not easy to reconcile the picture drawn by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, asking for £500,000,000, with the picture of Woolwich Arsenal being turned into a manufactory for milk pails. We have heard of turning swords into ploughshares, but now we hear of turning guns into milk pails. I want to address myself to the question of the disposal of stores. Hon. Members who heard that long list, ranging from tanks to tin-tacks, probably thought of the particular article of which they had particular knowledge. I can only judge the position from the matter that I have some acquaintance with, and that is the question of the disposal of land and buildings. We have been assured by the hon. Gentleman that the Department which he adorns has taken every possible precaution to ensure that the matters that have to be disposed of will be, realised to the best advantage of the people of this country. I have no doubt that that is true in the main, but I cannot check it in regard to many of its aspects. I can, however, check it in regard to the very important question of land and buildings, and I want to suggest to the hon. Gentleman that whatever precautions may have been taken in regard to other matters for disposal, they have missed a very obvious precaution they might have taken with respect to the disposal of land and buildings under their charge. It will be remembered, or it will be well within the recollection of this House—I believe that is the phrase—and of those Members who were here in 1909–10, that the Prime Minister, who was commencing at that time that great path of social reform in which he has now the support of the entire House, but in which at that time he was not quite so unanimously supported, was engaged in passing an Act which was known as the Finance Act, 1909–10, and as a result of that Act there was set up in this country a very considerable Department having to deal with the valuation of lands and buildings. That Department attracted a very considerable notice at the time, and although it has since sunk into tome obscurity it still exists and is still carrying on a very important work. How
important that work is may be gathered from the fact that it is the instrument of the Treasury in assessing the whole of the value of land and buildings which pass in this country either at death or on sale, amounting to some hundreds of millions of pounds per annum. This is a great Government Department. It is established all over this country, and it is a most efficient organisation. I can say that with perfect truth, because I was a member of it myself for some eight years, and it has in its possession all the facts and figures that can possibly be known in this country with regard to the value of land and buildings.
Would it not be imagined that a really efficient Department having an instrument of that kind at its disposal would take the trouble to consult it? Would it not be imagined that a Department which has at the present time, I understand, property in the nature of land and buildings to the extent of some £65,000,000 would take the trouble to make an inquiry of that Department in respect to any particular parcel it wished to dispose of? Although I have been in the Civil Service for a number of years, I am probably in capacitated by that fact from really understanding the rules of business, but from my recollections of my earlier business career it does seem to me that that would be the course expected of a Department which prided itself upon taking every possible precaution. What has been the actual policy of the Ministry? I think it has been to avoid by every possible means in its power taking that course, and it is the more extraordinary when one remembers that another great Department, the Department of which we probably are more proud than of any other in this country, and that is the Admiralty, throughout the whole course of the War, whenever it had occasion to acquire land and buildings for its purposes, did take this course. I do not know whether seamen are supposed to be better business men than landsmen, but they took the view that with this instrument in their hands, which cost them nothing the best course for them was to employ it in ascertaining some fair idea of what they were doing. Instead of which, the Ministry of Munitions ignores this great body of Civil servants. It sets up another Department. There may be some good reason for it. It may be a Department which is particularly subject to the disadvantages of Civil servants, and the
Ministry of Munitions may have sound reasons for ignoring it, reasons which they have not disclosed to the Treasury or to the Admiralty, and reasons which I for one would be very glad to get out of them in the course of the discussion to-night. I invite the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the reply which he gave me the other day when I asked him, in view of a Report that was made by a Select Committee on the working of this Department and its relations to the Admiralty and the expression of opinion contained therein, that very considerable service had been rendered by this Department, whether it was a fact that he would take advantage of this knowledge? The reply was that they were prepared to take advantage of any information that this Department cared to offer them. Is it to be supposed that one Department can ran after another Department and say, "Is there any way in which we can help you?" Would not the most sensible thing be for the Department which wants help to ask for it? I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he should in the disposal of land and buildings take advantage of the information that lies at hand, and that he should give to this House an undertaking that he will not dispose of a single piece of land or a single building without first getting an opinion of value from the Valuation Branch of the Board of Inland Revenue.
7.0 P.M.
For some years I was in charge of one of their districts, and I had this extraordinary experience. There I was, sitting in my office. I had some 80,000 files, in which were comprised particulars of every piece of land over the area in which I was placed. I had maps in my office in which were shown every plot. I received applications in considerable numbers from the Admiralty to advise them, but no inquiries came from the Ministry of Munitions or from the War Office. I do not blame the hon. Gentleman for the sins of the War Office; he has enough of his own to account for. But that was the position. I heard occasionally that men came into the neighbourhood who could not possibly have any local knowledge and who had not the facilities for acquiring the knowledge, and who never came to me for any assistance or help, which would gladly have been given, but who as best they could arrived at their own opinions in regard to the value of property. The hon. Gentleman has told us of the great work he has done,
and it has been a great work and I do not want to minimise it. It has been an extraordinarily great work, but I suggest to him that some little doubt is felt throughout the House by Members who stand in the same position with regard to other things as I do in regard to land, when they find that his little boast that he is taking every possible precaution in the disposal of properties and that he is placing matters in the hands of those best qualified to help him, is not exactly being carried out. I make these remarks not to hinder, but to help him. He is at the beginning of his stage, and says he has sold one factory. He has done extraordinarily well with the first one and may be congratulated upon it. I am sure that he will not be hindered or embarrassed in any way in disposing of the remainder if he does take advantage of the assistance which lies to his hands, and consults that great Department of State which has in its possession so much information with regard to the value of land.

Lieutenant-Colonel WEIGALL: I think I can immediately dispel the doubts of my hon. and gallant Friend or of any other hon. Members who may hold the same view. I occupy the position of Chairman of the Advisory Committee for the disposal of all lands, buildings, factories and furniture, and I can assure hon. Members that the Committee over which it is my privilege to preside will, I am perfectly sure, under the guidance and leadership of Sir Howard Frank, who is our administrative godfather, take every opportunity, whenever Lord Inverforth seeks advice, as he has already done, as to the disposal of any land, buildings, factories, or furniture, to become seised of all the information that is at the disposal either of the Department which the hon. and gallant Gentleman mentioned or of any other Department. The other Committee to which he referred reported on the excellent work done by the valuer of the Inland Revenue and the Admiralty. Let me assure him that Sir Howard Frank has, during the War, held the office of Director-General of Land, not only to the War Office and Ministry of Munitions and the Air Service, but also at the Admiralty. He has had at his disposal every single item of information that could be of any use whatever in relation to the ownership or occupation of every acre of land that any one of these Government
Departments may have for disposal. I am perfectly sure of this—and I have no interest whatever in it, other than having nearly all my life been concerned either with the ownership or management of land, and I am sure that the members of my Committee have no other interest than to endeavour, having possessed ourselves of all the information that may be of use to us before we tender advice to Lord Inverforth and his administrative officers, to be able to say at the end that we have cashed everything there is to cash at the best possible price—that of all the millions that have been spent, large amounts of money, as my hon. Friend opposite has stated, must be a dead loss. In these factories, which were fitted up for a particular form of projectile, I am advised, and my Committee are advised, that the major portion of their machinery cannot be turned to any industrial use. Therefore, I would warn hon. Members that the original cost is no indication at all as to the price we may be able to obtain. But really I only rose at the earliest possible moment to dispel all these doubts. We, I have no doubt, shall make no end of mistakes, and I hope there will not be enough lamp-posts in Westminster on which to hang us all, but I can assure my hon. Friends that everything possible is being done, and that we have our eyes on everything that is of any possible use whatever.

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: I had not the advantage of hearing anything except occasional passages from the very able speech of my hon. Friend (Mr. Kellaway), arid therefore I speak with some ignorance of what he said. I do not know whether he made any allusion to what the Government are doing with the munition factories in Ireland.

Mr. KELLAWAY signified dissent.

Mr. O'CONNOR: I cannot speak with any fullness of information, but only on rumours that have been brought to my attention. I think the hon. Gentleman will agree with me that the munition work in Ireland was extremely well done, and that some of the young men and women there were rather conspicuous by the promptitude and dexterity which they acquired during that work. It has been reported to me that some of these munition factories are being disposed of, and I will just give two or three words of warning to my hon. Friend. In the first place, I am told that the prices are not
quite so good as one could expect, and that as a result, in some cases at least, the factories, having been disposed of, the purchasers are engaged not in making any attempt to continue the factories, but in disposing at the best price they can of the machinery. That is about as bad a use as can be made of these munition factories. I heard a passage in the speech of my hon. Friend, in which he pointed out that it was absolutely necessary for the country that the factories here should be in the hands of people who had the capital, enterprise and knowledge to use these factories for the very necessary purpose of increasing the production of the country. If that observations be applicable to England, I think it is still more applicable to Ireland. One of the hopes I had—and I think I was justified in that hope by some observations made, not by the hon. Member (Mr. Kellaway) but by a gentleman connected with the Ministry—from the establishment of these munition factories in Ireland, and still more from the satisfactory manner in which they had turned out, was that they might be used for the very necessary purpose of starting industrial development in Ireland. I heard I hope it is not true, that some of the women who now find themselves without employment in these munition, works have been informed that the only way they can get employment is by going to France to work there. I only repeat the rumour as it was stated to me, and I give it under all reserve. I should be glad to give the Government an opportunity of denying the rumour if it is untrue, because it would certainly work some mischief if it were true, and I should certainly strongly condemn it. I do not wish to say any more at this moment, but I think I have thrown out to the Department and to the hon. Member, and to the Chief Secretary, a hint on which they may act, and use these factories for a somewhat better purpose than getting rid of them and then allowing the purchasers simply to turn down the machinery at the best prices they can get.

Mr. DEVLIN: I waited for a moment in the hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would initiate himself into the government of Ireland by dealing in some practical manner with the suggestions made by my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), because I have been reading in the reports of the
various itineries of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor and of Lord Gladstone that the one thing in all the world upon which they had set their hearts was to develop Irish industry, and in that little Island to create the heaven on earth which the Prime Minister is going to create here. This is a very small matter. The suggestion which my hon. Friend makes is that these munition factories, which have been erected at tremendous cost to the State, might be utilised for some of these industrial purposes which have been adumbrated in the speeches of Lord French and the Home Secretary. In the distribution of the public funds which have been devoted to the erection of munition factories Ireland had a very, very small share. The excuse made for it was that Ireland was not an industrial country, and that she was incapable of doing the particular class of work that was needed for war purposes. But we got a little, and two or three factories were erected in Ireland. I think I am right in saying—the hon. Member the Minister who has spoken can correct me if he likes—that although Ireland was not an industrial country, I mean in the three Southern provinces, and although the people there were altogether unaccustomed to this class of work, or indeed to any mechanical work, yet they have manifested a skill, a dexterity, and an efficiency in the making of munitions in these factories which called forth the loudest eulogies from those in responsible positions in the Department which controlled them. If the Government close up these factories, or scrap the machinery and tear down the factories, they will be doing a greater wrong to the community than if they had never erected these factories at all. They created an industrial mentality; they developed an industrial experience, and created a new point of view for the people living in those parts of Ireland, an industrial point of view, and now, when the War is over, these people who were altogether new to this character of work and occupation, and who have completed their work, are to be thrown out and a new arena of unemployment is to be created. I think that the right hon. Gentleman, who, I suppose, is going to continue the policy of glorious and magnificent promises to Ireland on the lines of industrial development, will be the first Chief Secretary that I ever remem-
ber who was prepared to put his promises into operation. This is a very small thing, and I would respectfully suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he might set his mind to work and discover whether, instead of building new factories in this country at tremendous cost, that some of these factories in Ireland might not be utilised for the purpose of taking advantage of the skill and the training of men and the fresh workers, who bring perhaps a finer mind to the task of industrialism than the tired class of workers; and that he might apply his mind to the work of trying to utilise these buildings, created at a large public expense, for the purpose of giving employment and adding to the prosperity of the nation.

Captain REDMOND: As the representative of one of the few favoured constituencies in Ireland which had the opportunity of having a factory allocated to it, I desire to say one or two words in support of the statements of my two hon. Friends. I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who represents Horncastle (Lieutenant-Colonel Weigall), who is the Chairman of the Committee which has the disposal of the factories and the land on which they stand. I was rather surprised to hear, at the conclusion of his remarks that his chief concern, as Chairman of this Committee, was that the outlay by the taxpayers of this country should be returned to that class. That is not, in my opinion, a statesmanlike view, or a practicable view, for the Government to take. I should say that these factories, having been brought into existence, especially new factories, creating entirely new conditions and new means of employment, as they have done in a few—only too few—portions of Ireland, the Government should rather look towards the prospect of keeping on these factories in some shape or form, and endeavouring to continue the employment that has arisen during the War.
My chief concern, therefore, is not what price the Treasury of the Ministry of Munitions should receive for these factories, but rather by what means the Government should be able to develop, and continue to develop, these factories for the benefit of the community at large. I think that it would be nothing short of an outrage to scrap machinery and plant, to sell land, and do away with the means of giving em-
ployment which has succeeded so well in portions of that country which so much needed it. I think that every Government factory in Ireland should not be scrapped, but should be sold as a going concern. What I mean is that if the Government are not prepared themselves to continue giving employment in some form or another, they should, at any rate, encourage the private enterprise of manufacturers, and state openly and firmly that they will sell them only as going concerns.
I would like to make this further suggestion. In a case I have particularly in my mind, I know that the municipal authorities are desirous of securing a very fine power-house, and also the adjacent factory for the benefit, in the first place, of the electric lighting of that city, and, in the second place, for letting out the surplus electric power from the power-house to enable a factory to be thereupon instituted. In a case, like that, I think it is only right that, when the Government is dealing with Government institutions and Government property, they should give preference—I say it unhesitatingly—to a municipality or to a municipal authority who are desirous of forwarding and benefiting—and who can show that they will do so—the needs and the necessities of the community they represent. I think that the Government should give them a preference over any private enterprise, but I think that any private enterprise should be given a preference over a system of selling piecemeal or scrapping machinery which, if sold piecemeal or scrapped, might be of very little use, but which if left in its present condition might be able to be made of great service, and a means of employment for the people in the neighbourhood.
My hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) mentioned a case about the alternative employment which was proposed to the women workers who had lately been employed in a munition factory. I do not know whether the Committee, or even the Chief Secretary, exactly credited my hon. Friend's description of what took place, but may I be allowed to add my own knowledge as to the accuracy of the facts he mentioned, because they intimately concern my own Constituency? As a matter of fact, only this day I have received a communication that the women workers in the national cartridge factory at Waterford have been docked, or done out of, or cut short of their thirteen weeks' unemployment
benefit, because they were offered, as an alternative means of employment, that they might go to France and obtain it there. I do not say that that has been done in all cases, but I have a petition in my possession from a large body of the women workers in that factory. It has been sent to me by a mutual benefit insurance society upon their behalf, and I can state without fear of contradiction that these women, who were employed a few weeks ago on munition work, and who were told when that munition factory was closed down that they were going to get this unemployment benefit, have now been told, before the thirteen weeks have elapsed during which they should have received this unemployment benefit, that unless they are willing to go to France and take employment there, they will receive no further unemployment benefit from the Government. I think that is a very unfair and very improper alternative for the Government to make to women workers—most of them married women workers—who have been employed in Government factories.
I only mention this case to supplement the remarks and the conclusions come to by my hon. Friend. The unemployment benefit, in my opinion, has been the worst form of bribery and corruption, and has worked worse for the benefit of the community as a whole than any proposal ever brought forward by any Government in this country. I was entirely against it from the start. What the Government should have done when the munition factories were turned down was to have found other sources of employment for the people. They should not have doled out large sums of money at the expense of the State for nothing. They should have given work to the people to do. Work is good for all of us. Give them work for the benefit of the State and pay them well, and you would have something to show for the money that has been allotted to them. Instead of that, you have nothing now, and you will have a further petition to continue this Government dole. I, therefore, desire to join most heartily with my right hon. Friend the Member for the Plaiting Division of Manchester (Mr. Clynes), when he said that the Government should immediately, here and now, give employment that will be productive, such as the improving of roads, the erection of artisan dwellings, and various kinds of work whereby they can improve the lives and conditions of the people. I hope sincerely
that if the Chief Secretary has anything to say on this matter, as it affects Ireland, he will take into consideration the remarks that have been made by my hon. Friends and myself on behalf of the community as a whole.

Colonel YATE: I should like to support what has just been said by the hon. and gallant Member for Waterford as to the waste of money in out-of-work donations. I think the proper thing for the good of the country, instead of giving those donations to an immense amount, would have been to have enlisted every man fit to work and said to him, "Now you go to the front and do your bit for a time, and let those men who have done their bit—"

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the MINISTRY Of MUNITIONS (Mr. James Hope): This matter is administered by the Ministry of Labour.

The CHAIRMAN: I am afraid that is so. The first sentences of the hon. and gallant Gentleman were in order.

Colonel YATE: There is one point I would like to ask the hon. Member in charge of Munitions. Can he tell us whether the high rates of wages paid for unskilled labour in monitions work is being paid now that the urgency of those munitions is gone? I had a case brought to me concerning the digging of gun-pits for the trial of guns. On those gun-pits, I was told, a very large number of Irishmen were employed during war-time. Whether they are still employed there I cannot say, but all those men received on the average

£4 a week. I believe £3 17s. 6d. was the lowest amount earned. I would ask whether those high rates for unskilled labour are being continued, because I am told that all the agricultural labourers in the district are leaving their work.

Mr. DEVLIN: Is not the hon. and gallant Gentleman out of order again?

Colonel YATE: They are all leaving their work, and the farmers cannot get labour for agriculture, which is urgently necessary. I would ask, therefore, the representative of the Munitions Department to tell us whether these very high wages for the unskilled work of digging these pits are still being continued or not?

Mr. DEVLIN: Bring in Chinese labour to do it!

Mr. HOPE: I am afraid I must ask for notice of the question. I should imagine that that work is probably already ceased. I want to say, on behalf of my hon. Friend the Deputy-Minister, that he has been feeling exceedingly unwell this afternoon, and had very great doubts whether he could get through his speech. Having got through it, he felt unable to stay any longer, and he regrets very much that ha was not able to listen to the representations of my hon. Friends from Ireland. I have taken careful note of them myself, and will convey them to him to-morrow.
Question put, "That Item (Ministry of Munitions) be reduced by£10."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 54; Noes, 243.

Division No. 10.]
AYES.
[7.30 p.m.


Adamson, Rt Hon. William
Hayday, A.
Sitch, C. H.


Arnold, Sydney
Hirst, G. H.
Smith, W. (Wellingborough)


Bell, James (Ormskirk)
Hogge, J. M.
Spoor, B. G.


Bromfield, W.
Irving, Dan
Swan, J. E. C.


Brown, J. (Ayr and Bute)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Taylor, J. W. (Chester-le-Street)


Cairns, John
Jones, J. (Silvertown)
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)


Carter, W. (Mansfield)
Kenyon, Barnet
Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)


Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.
Lunn, William
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)


Davies, Alfred (Clitheroe)
M'Lean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Thorne, Col. W. (Plaistow)


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
O'Connor, T. P.
Tootill, Robert


Devlin, Joseph
O'Grady, James
Waterson, A. E.


Donnelly, P.
Redmond, Captain William A.
Wedgwood, Col. Josiah C.


Edwards, C. (Bedwellty)
Richardson, R. (Houghton)
White, Charles F. (Derby, W.)


Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)
Roberts, F. O. (W. Bromwich)
Wignall, James


Graham, W. (Edinburgh)
Rose, Frank H.
Young, Robert (Newton, Lancs.)


Griffiths, T. (Pontypool)
Royce, William Stapleton



Grundy, T. W.
Sexton, James
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. T. Wilson and Captain A. Smith.


Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)
Shaw, Tom (Preston)



Hallas, E.
Short, A. (Wednesbury)



NOES.


Ainsworth, Captain C.
Astbury, Lt.-Com. F. W.
Baldwin, Stanley


Archdale, Edward M.
Atkey, A. R.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)


Barker, Major R.
Green, A. (Derby)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William


Barlow, Sir Montague (Salford, S.)
Gregory, Holman
Palmer, Brig.-Gen. G. (Westbury)


Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. N. (Gorbals)
Greig, Col. James William
Parker, James


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Gretton, Col. John
Parkinson, Albert L. (Blackpool)


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Griggs, Sir peter
Pennefather, De Fonblanque


Beckett, Hon. Gervase
Gritten, W. G. Howard
Perring, William George


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Guest, Major O. (Leices., Loughb'ro'.)
Pickering, Col. Emil W.


Benn, Sir Arthur S. (Plymouth)
Guinness, Lt.-Col. Hon. W. E. (B. St. E.)
Pownall, Lt.-Col. Assheton


Benn, Com. Ian Hamilton (G'nwich)
Hacking, Captain D. H.
Pratt, John William


Betterton, H. B.
Hailwood, A.
Preston, W. R.


Bigland, Alfred
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir Fred (Dulwich)
Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.


Birchall, Major J. D.
Haslam, Lewis
Purchase, H. G.


Bird, Alfred
Hayward, Major Evan
Rae, H. Norman


Borwick, Major G. O.
Henderson, Major V. L.
Ramsden, G. T.


Bowles, Col. H. F.
Hennessy, Major G.
Randles, Sir John Scurrah


Brackenbury, Col. H. L.
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford)
Raw, Lt.-Col. Dr. N.


Brassey, H. L. C.
Hickman, Brig.-Gen. Thomas E.
Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel


Bridgeman, William Clive
Hills, Major J. W. (Durham)
Regwick, G.


Brittain, Sir Harry E.
Hinds, John
Richardson, Albion (Peckham)


Britton, G. B.
Holmes, J. S.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. G. H. (Norwich)


Brown, Captain D. C. (Hexham)
Hood, Joseph
Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)


Bruton, Sir J.
Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)
Robinson,T. (Stretford, Lancs.)


Buchanan. Lieut.-Col. A. L. H.
Hops, Lt.-Col. Sir J. (Midlothian)
Roundell, Lt.-Col. R. F.


Buckley, Lt.-Col A.
Hopkinson, Austin (Mossley)
Rowlands, James


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Horne, Edgar (Guildford)
Samuel, A. M. (Farnham, Surrey)


Burn, Col. C. R. (Torquay)
Howard, Major S. G.
Samuel, S. (Wandsworth, Putney)


Burn, T. H. (Belfast)
Hughes, Spencer Leigh
Samuels, Rt. Hon. A. W. (Dublin Univ.)


Campbell, J. G. D.
Hurd, P. A.
Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur


Campion, Col. W. R. D.
Hurst, Major G. B.
Seager, Sir William


Carew, Charles R. S. (Tiverton)
Inskip, T. W. H.
Shaw, Capt. W. T. (Forfar)


Carr, W. T.
Jameson, Major J. G.
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E.


Carter, R. A. D. (Manchester)
Jephcott, A. R.
Simm, M. T.


Cautley, Henry Strother
Jesson, C.
Sprot, Col. Sir Alexander


Cayzer, Major H. R.
Jodrell, N. P.
Stanier, Capt. Sir Beville


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Oxford Univ.)
Johnstone, J.
Stanley, Col. Hon. G. F. (Preston)


Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)
Jones, Sir E. R. (Merthyr)
Starkey, Capt. John Ralph


Cheyne, Sir William Watson
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Steel, Major S. Strang


Child, Brig.-Gen. Sir Hill
Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)
Stephenson, Col. H. K.


Clay, Capt. H. H. Spender
Jones, Wm. Kennedy (Hornsey)
Stewart, Gershom


Clough, R.
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement
Stoker Robert Burdon


Coates, Major Sir Edward F.
Lane-Fox, Major G. R.
Strauss, Edward Anthony


Cohen, Major J. B. B.
Larmor, Sir J.
Sturrock, J. Leng-


Collins, Col. G. P. (Greenock)
Law, A. J. (Rochdale)
Sugden, Lieut. W. H.


Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.
Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Glasgow)
Surtees, Brig.-Gen. H. C.


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ. Wales)
Sutherland, Sir William


Cope, Major W. (Glamorgan)
Lloyd, George Butler
Sykes, Sir C. (Huddersfield)


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Univ.)
Lorden, John William
Taylor, J. (Dumbarton)


Cozens-Hardy, Hon. W. H.
Lort-Williams, J.
Terrell, G. (Chippenham, Wilts.)


Craig, Capt. C. (Antrim)
Loseby, Captain C. E.
Thomas, Sir R. (Wrexham, Denb.)


Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Lowther, Col. C. (Lonsdale, Lancs.)
Thompson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)


Curzon, Commander Viscount
Lyle, C. E. Leonard (Stratford)
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, W.)


Davidson, Major-General J. H.
Lynn, R. J.
Townley, Maximillian G.


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Lyon, L.
Turton, Edmund Russborough


Davies, Sir Joseph (Crewe)
M'Curdy, Charles Albert
Waddington, R.


Davies, T. (Cirencester)
M'Donald, D. H. (Bothwell, Lanark)
Walker, Col. William Hall


Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)
M'Guffin, Samuel
Walton, J. (York, Don Valley)


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington)
M'Laren, R. (Lanark, N.)
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Dennis, J. W.
M'Lean, Lt.-Col. C. W. W. (Brigg)
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.


Dewhurst, Lieut.-Com. H.
Macmaster, Donald
Weston, Col. John W.


Donald, T.
M'Micking, Major Gilbert
Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.


Doyle, N. Grattan
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
White, Col. G. D. (Southport)


Edgar, Clifford
Maitland, Sir A. D. Steel-
Whitla, Sir William


Edwards, J. H. (Glam., Neath)
Malone, Major P. (Tottenham, S.)
Wigan, Brig.-Gen. John Tysen


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Martin, A. E.
Wild, Sir Ernest Edward


Falcon, Captain M.
Mason, Robert
Williams, A. (Consett, Durham)


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Mitchell, William Lane-
Williams, Lt.-Com. C. (Tavistock)


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Moles, Thomas
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough)


Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.
Molson, Major John Elsdale
Wilson, Col. Leslie (Reading)


FitzRoy, Capt. Hon. Edward A.
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz
Wood, Major Hon. E. (Ripon)


Foreman, H.
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, W.)


Foxcroft, Captain C.
Mount, William Arthur
Wood, Sir J. (Stalybridge and Hyde)


Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Woolcock, W. J. U.


Gardner, E. (Berks., Windsor)
Murchison, C. K.
Worsfold, T. Cato


Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Murray, Dr. D. (Western Isles)
Yate, Col. Charles Edward


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. John
Nall, Major Joseph
Yeo, Sir Alfred William


Glyn, Major R.
Neal, Arthur
Younger, Sir George


Goff, Sir R. Park
Nelson, R. F. W. R.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Lord Edmund Talbot and Mr. Dudley Ward.


Gould, J. C.
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. (Exeter)



Grant, James Augustus
Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)




Nield, Sir Herbert



Question put, and agreed to.

Original Question again proposed.

PAYMENT OF MEMBERS.

The CHAIRMAN: The next item which, so far as I am aware, the right hon. Member on my left wishes to discuss, is Class II., Item 2, House of Commons Vote.

Mr. ADAMSON: There are one or two points in connection with the question of the payment of Members that I desire to say a few words about. You will perhaps remember, Mr. Whitley, that on 26th February, 1917, Mr. Speaker gave a ruling on the question of the payment of Members' salaries. The Official Report gives it as follows:
Major Newman: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, a question which I have given you Private Notice: Whether, when a Member elected to this House finds himself unable or neglects to take the Oath of Allegiance, he is entitled to draw his salary as a Member of the House?

Mr. Speaker: I informed the hon. Member and the House—I think it was a week ago—that there were certain legal questions which had arisen, and I thought it was my duty to consult the Law Officers of the Crown with regard to them. I have now done that, and I have had their opinion. Some doubts arose as to the exact moment of time at which a Member's salary became payable, and the question I asked the Law Officers of the Crown was whether there was any statutory Regulation with regard to that, or whether the exact moment was to be fixed administratively. The answer I got was that there was no statutory enactment fixing the exact moment of time at which the salary was to become payable. Therefore, I presume it rests with me and becomes part of my duty to fix by Instructions to the Department concerned the exact moment when the salary becomes payable. I believe, if I fix at that moment the time when an hon. Member qualifies himself to perform his duty as a Member by taking and subscribing the Oath, I shall be carrying out the views of the House, and I propose to issue an Instruction to the Department to that effect."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th February, 1917, cols. 1691–92, Vol. 90.]
At the time that ruling was given—I do not find fault with it—I do not think either Mr. Speaker or the House contemplated the difficulties and anomalies that were likely to arise on the occasion of a General Election. We have had a General Election since, and we find that certain anomalies have arisen which impose a hardship upon certain Members of the House. On the first day when Members were being sworn in there was such a rush that it was impossible for all the Members who desired to take the oath on that occasion to do so, and the consequence is that in view of the ruling to which I have drawn attention hon. Members who were unfortunate enough not to be able to be sworn in on
the first day the House opened will be paid one day's salary less than those who were fortunate enough to be sworn in on the first day. [Hon. Members: "Shame!"] That is a matter possibly that does not seriously affect a large number of Members of the House, but I can assure those hon. Members that so far as the Labour Members who had the misfortune not to be able to be sworn in on the first day are concerned, it imposes a considerable hardship upon them.

Colonel W. THORNE: I am one day behind.

Mr. ADAMSON: I have been asked to raise this matter with a view of ascertaining whether it would not be possible to have a common understanding regarding the date on which payment should be given for the Members of the new House. We think that not only should Members of this new Parliament be paid from the date of swearing in, but that the payment should date from the declaration of the poll, namely, the 28th of December. With regard to the anomaly to which I have drawn attention concerning the date at which the salary should begin, it is a matter which imposes a considerable amount of hardship upon certain Members of the Labour party because on their election to the House of Commons the various offices they held prior to the election cease, and their salaries also cease on their election, and in those cases there will be a certain financial hardship imposed upon them unless the House gives effect to the suggestion I have made.
There is also another matter which I have been requested on behalf of the Labour party to bring to the notice of the Committee. It is that we think that a good case can be made out for each Member of the House of Commons being provided with a free railway pass between the House and his constituency. If an arrangement of this character was given effect to it would remove some of the inequalities that exist under present conditions. For example, hon. Members representing London constituencies have very little expense in the way of travelling, whereas, on the other hand, you have Members representing constituencies in distant parts of the country who are spending from £100 to possibly £200 per annum upon travelling between here and their constituencies. Some Labour Members who retain their trade union con-
nection require to travel almost weekly between this House and their constituency, and in their case a very heavy burden is imposed upon them. Suppose they take a third-class railway contract; in some cases it will run to about £100 per year, and if they take a first-class it runs into nearly £200 per year. That makes a big inroad into the salary that is paid so far as those particular Members of the Labour party are concerned. I believe there are Members representing other parties in this House who are also feeling the unfairness of the present arrangement, and I hope the Committee will give very serious consideration to the two particular points I have already put before them. Since we have had this discussion as a party, I have found not only is there some dissatisfaction regarding the date at which the salary begins as far as the Members of the new House of Commons are concerned, and the question of travelling expenses, but I also find that there is an idea in the minds of a considerable number of hon. Members that the time has come when the salary ought to be considerably increased. The salary was fixed in the early days of 1911, and it was then thought to be adequate, but since then the cost of living has increased by something like 120 per cent. and in the case of Labour Members that makes a very serious in-road into their salaries, although it may not seriously affect a large number of the Members of the present House of Commons. I understand that the present House of Commons possibly consists of as wealthy a body of men as ever represented the constituencies of this country in the House of Commons. [Hon. Members: "No."] At any rate that does not apply to the Labour party, and there may be other hon. Members who are in a similar position to the Members of the Labour party, and I hope we shall have their wholehearted supported in our effort to have the three points I have mentioned given some consideration. I trust that as a result of this discussion there will be some rearrangement made that will relieve this hardship and remove the inequalities that have existed up to the present time. I understand we are also entitled to look to the members of the Government themselves for some consideration with respect to this matter, as I understand they have in mind some increase in the salaries of Ministers. I put these points forward for the careful and
serious consideration of the Committee, and I hope that, as a result of the discussion that will ensue, we shall get some arrangement that will put us in a better position as regards the date on which the payment of salaries begins and the other inequalities to which I have alluded.

Mr. CLEMENT EDWARDS: I desire to associate myself on behalf of the party which I represent with the remarks that have fallen from the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I am quite aware that on this Vote there cannot be more than a broad expression of opinion that will be conveyed to certain quarters, because we cannot increase the Vote.

The CHAIRMAN: It is quite open to the Committee to reduce the salaries.

Mr. EDWARDS: I do not propose to do that for the purpose of finding a peg on which to hang the few remarks I wish to address to the House, as I do not pro pose to rob Peter to pay Paul. If there is one thing that has been emphasised more than another in the period of the War and at the subsequent Election, it is that Parliament has ceased to be a house of privilege for the well-to-do. The Houses of Parliament are recognised as the right organ through which the voice of the people of this country shall find expression, and that has been more emphasised than ever in the recent industrial unrest. What is the position with which we are faced? It is that the great bulk of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who sit on those benches, representing organised labour, have come to this House to say that their constituents desire that industrial and social problems shall be referred to Parliament for settlement. Those who were here, but are no longer here, such as the Pacifist element and the Anarchist element—

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Oh, oh!

Mr. EDWARDS: I except the hon. and gallant Member opposite, and I say that those who were here representing Pacifists, Syndicalists, and Anarchists, when they found themselves defeated promptly said, "We will now resort to the direct method," meaning the weapon of the strike to enforce whatever might be their claims. [Hon. Members: "No!"] I am only quoting from speakers like the gentleman who used to sit for Leicester who is no longer here—

Brigadier-General CROFT: He never will be here.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Quote him correctly.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. EDWARDS: Immediately after the declaration of the poll there were gentlemen of that type—I do not profess to carry pedantically the exact quotation of that gentleman, or any other of his type, in my mind.

The CHAIRMAN: Where is the relevancy of the hon. Member's remarks?

Mr. EDWARDS: The relevancy, I would respectfully say, is this: At a moment when on the one side you have a body of people seeking to stir up industrial unrest in the country and urging the direct method, and on the other side you have people represented on these benches who say that the right method of dealing with social and industrial grievances is through Parliament, it becomes of imperative importance that there should be such conditions attached to membership in Parliament as to enable the representatives of the poorest in the land, and the poorest representative of the poorest in the land, to come here without sacrifice and add their voice in advocating what should be the reforms and the remedies for these industrial and social troubles. That is the point that I am making, and it is a point that has been emphasised by the result of the election. It becomes still more emphasised when you have people outside talking of methods of settling our industrial and social ills other than the Parliamentary method. We stand here for the Parliamentary method, and I say that it behaves Parliament, in the interests of social order and in the interests of a happy nation, to extend every possible facility to the poorest of poor men who voice any point of view in the country to come here. That cannot be done as things stand at present. Take the case of the poor men who are here in this Parliament. Probably instead of £100 in respect of the first quarter they will receive after deduction for Income Tax £42 or £43, which I venture to suggest is not sufficient for any man who has been elected and who has no other means. It is because of that that I desire whole heartedly to associate myself with what has emanated from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Labour party in
regard to dating the salaries back to the day upon which we became Members of the present Parliament, namely, 28th December. I also desire to associate myself with what he said with regard to railway travelling. I suppose it is one of the things to be considered in connection with the Ways and Communications Bill when it comes up. In principle I entirely agree with him. I am anxious to see Parliament made the real effective voice of the nation for dealing with its troubles, and to that end proper provision must be made not only to enable the wealthy man to come here—that has always been so—but to enable the poorest men in the land to be represented in this House.

Mr. INSKIP: Those of us who were present in the House when the last Division took place noticed that something was afoot this evening by the crowded nature of the benches opposite, but few of us could have imagined that at this early date in this present Parliament a proposal of this sort was about to be made.

Captain LOSEBY: Everybody knew it.

Mr. INSKIP: I was not so fortunate as to share the knowledge of the hon. Member, and from the way in which the right hon. Gentleman made the proposal it was difficult to discover whether he was serious or whether he was making a proposal which he hoped some day might be seriously considered.

Mr. SEXTON: Are you out to insult us?

Mr. JOHN JONES: We are not going to have it though.

The CHAIRMAN: Hon. Members must really remember that they come here to listen to different opinions.

Mr. R. M'LEAN: These are not opinions; they are insults.

The CHAIRMAN: That is for the Chair to decide.

Mr. INSKIP: If hon. Gentlemen will bear with me, I think they will see that the last thing I desire to do is to insult anybody. From the way in which the right hon. Gentleman made the proposal, I find it difficult to discover whether he intended to press it seriously this evening. Of course all of us, from one point of view, would like to meet the wishes of the hon. Members in whose interests the proposal was primarily made, and it does place some of us in a somewhat invidious
position if we are to give a vote on this matter in accordance with the dictates of our conscience, because those of us who may be perhaps more prosperous or more fortunately endowed with this world's goods, are said to be depriving hon. Members of an advantage or a privilege which we enjoy through no merit of our own. If I may speak for myself, I feel the burden of that, but at the same time I venture to suggest that this House ought to be careful as to the spirit in which it approaches a proposal of this sort. I was not a Member of the House when the payment of Members was first proposed or adopted, but I seem to remember that the figure of £400 was fixed somewhat arbitrarily and without discussion as a figure which was not likely to be permanent. This is the first step this evening to increase it. Although the right hon. Gentleman has not suggested any figure to which it should be increased, I gather from his mentioning 125 per cent. that it is proposed that it should be something in the neighbourhood of £800 per year.
We must be careful about this in the interests of Parliament itself. The right place to moot this proposal is in the country before the electors and not on the floor of the House. It will be said that on the very first opportunity we are doing what people said would most certainly be done—we are increasing the salary which we have voted ourselves and which was never given with, the consent of the nation. And this proposal is likely to be repeated indefinitely as long as hon. Members opposite are able to provoke our sympathy, as they do provoke our sympathy, by the proposal which hag been made this evening. I am not saying this in any partisan spirit, and Heaven forbid because I am endowed—whether I am or not matters not—with this world's goods, that I should forbid this privilege that I enjoy to others. I do not approach it in that spirit, but I do suggest for the consideration of the House and of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite that these proposals should be made in the country at a time when the country can express an opinion about them. They should be made in the constituencies when hon. Members are proposing themselves for election to this House. When these matters have been talked of in the country when hon. Members opposite have asked their constituents what they
think about a proposal to increase their salary to £700 or £800 per year, then we shall be in a position to discuss this question and to vote upon it according to the opinion of the electors so far as they can be gleaned without the invidious comparison between the private means of one Member and another being made. As to the other matter mentioned, I confess again that I imagine it could hardly be seriously intended as worthy of discussion. I took my seat on the first evening. I was present some half or three-quarters of an hour before the Sitting concluded, and there would have been no difficulty in any hon. Gentleman taking the Oath on that occasion.

Colonel W. THORNE: Perhaps you knew the Speaker's ruling.

Mr. INSKIP: As to the other point regarding the payment of railway fares, I venture to think that the right hon. Gentleman made out a case which might receive the sympathetic consideration of those responsible. That question seems to me to stand on an entirely different footing horn the question of an increase of salary, and, whatever course may be taken with regard to that, I hope that the proposal as to the railway fares may meet with immediate acquiescence, if that be possible, on the part of the authorities concerned. I hope hon. Members will not think these remarks are intended in any discourteous spirit, but I venture to think that the proposal for an increase in salary should be dropped.

Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): I am sure that my right hon. Friend will not feel that I am showing any discourtesy in not making a long speech when I say to him that it is not possible for the Government to agree to his proposals. I confess—I am sure hon. Gentlemen opposite will not think that I am saying anything offensive to any of them—that I did notice a difference between the vehemence, assurance, and vigour with which my right hon. Friend advocated some of the proposals and that which he displayed in regard to others. It did seem to me that he meant this to be taken as a suggestion that a change should be made rather than that he expected that the change should take place at once. I think he was right. I do not wish at all to press the point just made by my hon. Friend behind me, but to the best of my knowledge there was no mention
whatever of any suggestion for an increase of salary throughout the whole of the General Election. At all events, I never saw anything of it in any speech which came to my notice, and though, of course, the House of Commons has the power to make changes of this kind, I should think it surprising.

Mr. M'LEAN: May I ask if any suggestion was made on the part of the Government during the election with regard to increases of salaries of certain Cabinet Ministers which has since been given?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think that is on the same footing, and I do not think that a proposal of this kind should be seriously pressed until it has been ventilated in the country and until the people have some idea that it is going to be made. I confess I have a good deal of sympathy with the proposal that the salary should count from the date of the election. There does not on the face of it seem any strong reason why that should not take place, but there really is a strong reason in the reply of Mr. Speaker which was read out by my right hon. Friend. He said that the Law Officers could give him no guidance as to a definite time, but since that ruling was given the House of Commons, as a matter of fact, has itself given a clear indication as to the time a man does become for effective purposes a Member of Parliament. In the Franchise Bill it is laid down that the deposit is not to be returned until the Member has taken the oath, and that clearly indicates, so far as that Act can indicate it, that is the time when a man does become a Member of Parliament. That is reasonable on the face of it if we are to look upon the salary as something paid for services rendered, because you cannot perform any of the functions of a Member until you have taken the oath and are therefore in a position to take your part in the work of the House. That, therefore, seems the reasonable time. There is another stronger reason against it, and if it could be overcome I should have no objection to seeing it dated back. A man does not really become a Member of Parliament until he takes the oath, and one could not say that you could make that retrospective after the oath is taken. The difficulty of doing that would be too great.
Surely the House of Commons is not prepared to state that the salary shall be paid to a man as soon as he is returned as a
Member of Parliament—that it should be paid to him when he does not take the one step necessary to enable him to perform any of the duties connected with the House! I am sorry to say that it is an unanswerable reason, otherwise I should be very glad indeed to agree.

Colonel THORNE: Does my right hon. Friend think that the Members of this House were Members at the time Mr. Speaker was elected and before the oath was taken?

Mr. ADAMSON: What if the Member took the oath within a month of the assembling of the House?

Mr. BONAR LAW: In a case of that kind I should be quite willing. But I think the other proposals are on a different footing. I noticed that Members of the House have a good deal of sympathy with the suggestion that railway fares should be paid. I feel that sympathy for myself, but, after all, it would be really an addition to our salaries—it is on precisely the same footing as raising one's salary. My right hon. Friend says that by the present arrangement it is very hard that a Member representing a distant constituency should be on the same footing as one in. London. That is perfectly true and if that were the only consideration I should be prepared to meet it. But it is not. A man whose home is in London and who is elected for a London constituency is saved all sorts of expenses which are incurred by a man who lives in a provincial town and has to come to London and make it his home. But I am afraid I cannot, at present at least, hold out any hope of being able to agree to that proposal. As regards salary, I do not think the time has come for asking that it should be increased. I think that members of the Government and Members of the House are on a perfectly different footing. I remember very well when the payment of Members was agreed to. My right hon. Friend the present Prime Minister carried it through in the face of a good deal of opposition. One of the grounds on which he justified it was this: "This is not," he said, "remuneration, not a recompense, not a salary; it is something to help Members of Parliament, not by any means really in payment for their services." This is the difference between Members of the House and members of the Government. The latter are whole-time people. They are not allowed to do
anything else. They are not permitted to take directorships or anything, but have to devote themselves to the work for which the salary is given. It may be a question whether that salary is too small or too large. But that has to be decided by the House of Commons on precisely the same principle by which it decides the payment of Civil servants—that is whether or not the amount is too large or too small in order to secure the best men available to do the work. That seems to me to be on a different footing. But, of course, prejudice remains, and any Government will hesitate a great deal before it suggests raising the salary. It is bound to do so, and, as I mentioned in answer to a question, that the Government are considering it, and if we make proposals I shall give a reason. But it is really based on what I think is a principle, that it is necessary to get the best men for the post. I should certainly desire, if such a change were made at all, it should be not so much at the initiative of the Government as with the real consent of the House of Commons itself. I can assure my right hon. Friend below the Gangway that in the troublous times in front of us it is in the interest, not of the House of Commons only, but of the nation, so far as it can be done, that this should be the forum where all these disputes can be settled, and I would be sorry to do anything which would make it more difficult to do this. But, for the reasons I have given, I do not think the Members of the House of Commons should ask me at this stage to make any change in the existing arrangement.

Major HILLS: I have listened with interest to my right hon. Friend's speech. I agree with the greater part of it. The point I do differ with him is as to free travelling for Members of Parliament. I have listened to more than one Debate on the question, but it has always seemed to me very hard to defend our present system, and its rank inequality and unfairness. Why should a Member who sits for a North Country constituency have to pay as many pounds for coming here to do his duty as the London Member has to pay in pence? It cannot be right. When the matter was discused before, at the time when the payment of Members did not obtain, there was no strong argument for paying railway fares, but now the whole position has changed. You pay
the Member £400 a year. Yet the Member who sits for a Northern constituency is taxed to the extent of one-quarter or one-half of his salary, and tills is not fair as compared with the position of a London Member. When the House of Commons was an unpaid assembly possibly no strong case could have been made out for free travelling, but now that hon. Members are paid and have to go to and from their constituencies, the question does arise why should a special burden be imposed on a particular class of Members who happen to represent Northern or Western Country constituencies. I think there is great unfairness on that ground, and I hope my right hon. Friend will be willing to reconsider the matter. It would not be a very great concession. It would not involve any money payment. It would only mean that the Northern Country Member should be able to come to the House on the same terms as the London Member.

Mr. M'LEAN: There is the constitutional point as to the position when Mr. Speaker was elected. Before the Members had been sworn in Mr. Speaker was nominated and seconded by two Members, or shall I say by two private individuals, because at that time no one had been sworn in as a Member of Parliament. But after Mr. Speaker had been duly elected and taken his seat, then those of us who participated in the proceedings—or as many as possible—were sworn in, and others took the oath on the following day. If we are not to be considered Members of Parliament until we are sworn in and our salary is to date from the date when we are sworn in, how can we elect a Speaker of this House when we are not Members of this House? I put that question to the Leader of the House, who is a Scotsman like myself and probably will be able to dissect the problem. With regard to his objection to the payment of travelling expenses, hon. Members will remember that several hundred pounds extra were voted for the Chief Secretary for Iceland because of additional travelling expenses to that distressful country. If it was necessary that a special or extra allowance should be made to the Chief Secretary for Ireland to permit him to fulfil his particular duties as a Member of the House and a representative of the Crown, it is surely not too much to ask that the other Members of this House, who are doing no less useful work, though perhaps in a more humble capacity as ordinary Members of the
House, should claim to have this matter sympathetically considered by the Government.

Mr. C. WHITE: I will not indulge in wild rhodomontade, but give a concrete instance of how this question affects myself. I have to pay £66 10s. a year for a season ticket, which is third-class. At the time of my nomination I was receiving £300 from the Ministry of Food, but I was ordered to give it up at a moment's notice at the time I was nominated. As a consequence, from 1st December to 5th February I had no employment whatever—through no fault of my own. We were not allowed to take up our duties as Members of Parliament until the 5th February. Again that was no fault of our own. I ask, with all respect, is it any advantage to have a Member for a constituency living in that constituency? If it is not, then he might as well come to live in London, because it would be very much better. I have a constituency which covers 310 square miles, which I endeavour, as far as possible, to visit. Will anybody tell me how I am to do it? My next item is Income Tax, £31 10s., or £97 16s. a year, out of the bare £400 a year, which is all I have coming in from anywhere. I have to come to London to live. I cannot live here on less than 12s. a day, I find. That is another £3 or £4 a week, and I do not indulge in luxuries—only coffee. That brings my total to £253 16s. a year. With the multitude of letters I am getting, I have to spend £1 a week on postage. That is altogether £303 16s. a year. Fortunately, I live in a small house. I am bringing up my grandchildren, whose father is still in the Army. I have lived, then, on £100 a year in Derbyshire, and keep my family there. I am not asking for an increase of salary. I never paid Income Tax in my life till January last, but I have been doing a great deal of public work in Derbyshire. I want to bring the advantage of that public life to the House of Commons and to continue my public work in Derbyshire, as well to give the value of my experience to the House of Commons. How can I do it? I shall have to find lodgings, if that is possible, in London. I do not know how I am going to do it for less than the figure I named. I want to make an appeal to the Leader of the House, in whose honesty I have always believed, although I have been opposed
to him all my life. I do not believe that he is a political strategist, at least, I did not think he was until a few minutes ago, and I hope he will give up that position. I would put this question to him. Supposing the House should decide to-night—what is very unlikely, after what he has said—that Members of Parliament should be paid their railway fares, would it alter the right hon. Gentleman's view as to reconsidering the position he took up a moment or two ago? I am not speaking as one hon. Member on the other side has spoken, although he spoke in all good faith. I have not 1s. in the world, or only a few shillings until I get my salary, which will be about £40. I shall have to pay all that away as soon as I get it and buy another season ticket for the quarter. That is a concrete instance of how the matter affects the working-man Member of Parliament and I hope very much that the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider the position.

Lieutenant-Colonel DALRYMPLE WHITE: I should like to support the plea made by the hon. and gallant Member for Durham (Major Hills), that the question of railway fares stands in a different position from the other questions. Not only is there inequality between the Member who has a seat near London and those who, like the majority of Labour Members, are from the North, the far-industrial centres, and from Wales, but also the man who takes part in the public life in his own part of the world is penalised as compared with the man who takes no part at all. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of Members having trade union business, but whether it is a trade union business or other business the men who take a share in public life are penalised. On that ground there is special urgency for some sort of assistance in regard to railway fares being given to those Members who live a great way from London.

Mr. SEXTON: We have heard the case of the man who lives in a cottage, the case of a man who is dependent entirely upon his salary, and we have heard one Member opposite tell us that this is a question which ought to be submitted to the constituencies. If I am in order, I should like to ask that hon. Member whether he would apply the same principle to every question that comes before this House? For instance, would he apply it to a matter that has been foreshadowed, namely, the application of Conscription? The hon.
Gentleman, suggested that the constituencies should be the judge as to the work or merit of a man or as to the strength of his income. I would respectfully suggest that in that case the hon. Member himself would be taking a very severe risk. I want to put the case of a man who is a trade union official, as I happen to be myself, whose members are generous enough to continue his salary while he is a Member of this House. Even under those conditions the trade union official, whose salary is still paid by his organisation, is out of pocket. I want to give you my own particular case. I am speaking from my own point of view. There are cases of Members in this House who were trade union officials and who on their election to Parliament had to resign their positions, according to the constitution of their organisation. These men were receiving more than £400. They had to break up their homes to come to live in London and practically became London Members, but even then their salaries, if they were living in London, would be more than they are getting as Members of Parliament. My salary is still paid, thanks to the generosity of my union but my railway contract is £105, and I am not so fortunate as my hon. Friend (Mr. White). I wish I could find lodgings at 12s. a day. I have searched in vain all over London for anything less than £1 a day.

Mr. WHITE: Very humble mine are.

Mr. SEXTON: It costs me £5 a week for hotel expenses, it cost me over £2 a week for a railway contract and, as the penalty of fame, there are charity balls and football clubs which will not be ignored. I shall be expected to disgorge a certain sum out of my ordinary normal salary to enable me to do my duty by my Constituents. It is not fair. The hon. Member opposite may be fortunate. His lines may be cast in pleasant places. Ours are not from the financial point of view. Every consideration ought to be given to men who are placed in the position of trade union officials and who have no other resources than the meagre £400 a year that the Government allows Members of Parliament.

WAR INDEMNITIES.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: I wish again to draw attention to the present position with regard to the claim for war indemnities. The Government
may consider that we who raise this question are very unreasonable and inconsiderate. We hope the Government is sound on the matter, but we want it to have no excuse, when it is representing us in Paris, for misreading the feeling which exists in the House of Commons and throughout the country on this matter. It is no good beating about the bush. We fear that there may be excessive consideration shown which will enable Germany to reconstruct her position so that very shortly she may be more numerous and more powerful than she was before the War. There are many hidden tendencies of trade, of race, of commerce, and of finance, and, indeed, there is an aroma of international finance hanging about even the British Government which causes one to feel that Germany may be treated with too much tenderness. We do not raise this question with any feeling of vindictiveness or from any sentiment, but because it is a matter which will decide the future peace of the world. Hitherto the German alliance has consisted of a patchwork of mutually hostile nationalities. The subject races, of Austria were a very great source of weakness. Owing to the regrouping of nationalities in the Peace, that is being changed, and owing to the break-up of Austria and the fact that ten or fifteen millions more of German-speaking people will coalesce with the German Empire, we have the prospect, in future, of a far more powerful central German race than we have ever had in the past. The efforts of the friends of Germany to get the alliance, instead of Germany, saddled with the crippling burden of debt which will result from the War is very remarkable. As soon as they are blocked on one line of attack they immediately start another. Originally we were told this country could not claim any reparation or indemnities for other expenditure than that in connection with repairs for air raids and for ships sunk. We had a satisfactory statement at the beginning of the Session from the Government that they were going to insist on the payment of indemnities, and that there was nothing in the terms of the Armistice to prevent it. Those who are suggesting that Germany should be let off easily, being blocked in that direction, are now trying to arrange that we shall come off worse in the division of German assets, and now, if we may judge from the Press, it is being suggested that reparation and indemnity should rank before the repay-
ment of the colossal sum which this country has advanced by way of loan to our Allies. This is a matter which will cripple our finance for years unless the Government takes a firm hand and insists that the money advanced by this country to our Allies, with confidence in their good faith, shall be repaid out of the assets of Germany.
There are two other grounds put forward by the friends of Germany to induce the Government to forego indemnities. First of all, we are told we must please America. Paris, of course, is like a sounding-board. Every statement of any member of the Peace Conference is repeated and multiplied, and it has become generally acknowledged that we are taking up an attitude rather on the American side in this matter than on the French side. There is a suspicion, which I hope may prove untrue, that in the earlier negotiations in connection with the Armistice the Government committed itself to the American point of view, America having said she wanted no indemnities, and that when the Prime Minister at the election went very far to meet us in demanding an indemnity from Germany he put himself in a position of great difficulty, and would not be at all sorry if the Reparation Commission in Paris could be scapegoat to get him out of his present position. Is there any evidence that America as a whole wants us to forgo this just claim? America has had very great sympathy throughout the War for Belgium, and it is surely indefensible that Belgium's claim should be limited to her material damage! It is a small people, guaranteed by international instruments against aggression, and it is most outrageous that, having been set upon by Germany, it should by this American attitude be condemned to stagger on under this crushing burden of debt while its German neighbours grow fat owing to its renunciation. During the War we worked in very close agreement and sympathy with France and Belgium, and if indeed there is a variety of standpoint on this indemnity question, surely it is better for us, if we have to make a choice, to stand by those who have fought and bled for us from the beginning of the War rather than take up the attitude of trying to curry favour with America.
The American attitude is based upon what President Wilson and others used to say, in all good faith, to the belligerents about "Peace without victory." Well, they have altered since then, and a good many of them think that peace without victory would not be good for the future of countries in the world. If we give way we are not going to get any gratitude from America; we are much more likely to receive their contempt for having thrown away our just claim. Besides that, President Wilson's policy of indemnities has become a matter of party dispute in America, and I do suggest that it is a very slippery foundation for popularity in America for us to take our stand on a matter which is now so largely dividing opinion in that country. It is much safer to do what we have a right to do and trust to American good feeling to understand our motives. The other point of view which is being put forward, I suppose in the interests of Germany, is the point of view which is mentioned in black-leaded type by the organ of the late Minister for Propaganda, the "Daily Express," of to-day. That organ is, we imagine, in a position to know, because it is common property that Lord Beaverbrooke is in close touch with the Government, and I believe in very close touch with the Lord Privy Seal. In to-day's issue it says:
The British Government looks forward with considerable apprehension to the creation of a sullen Germany, giving under foreign domination, and compelled to work against its will. The French demands naturally and properly are enormous, and Italy is steadily claiming her pound of flesh. In order, therefore, to relieve the situation and not to drive Germany into despair by piling up the Bill the British Empire will probably make no money claim whatever.
The Lord Privy Seal this afternoon said there was no foundation for this assertion, but I hope he will destroy all chance of such suggestions being revived by giving us a reassuring statement this evening. Of course, we all realise that we must avoid the danger of bringing about anarchy in Germany. We all realise the very great difficulty of obtaining payment, quite apart from the question of Germany raising the money—the difficulty of transferring that wealth from Germany to us. But these difficulties, I am sure the whole House realises, are no good reason whatever against registering the full British claim, though those dangers and difficulties certainly might be a very fair reason for deciding not to enforce that
full claim. Germany, after all, has very large assets, which are concentrated in such a way that they can be taken over by international control for a term of years. She has colossal mineral resources; the Westphalian coalfield is valued at £170,000,000,000, and her potash at£20,000,000,000. If these mineral fields were put under international control, and bonds redeemable, say, in 100 years or a shorter period, at the option of the German Government, were issued in payment of the claims which are admitted on the part of the various Allies and secured on these assets, surely it would be a tremendous incentive to Germany to pay off her indemnities to the Allied countries in a short time. The total value of such assets would be very much greater than the maximum claim against Germany, and this excess of value would probably induce Germany to redeem the bonds and regain control in a much shorter period than the maximum which might be laid down. This matter is of enormous importance, because we are spending money nowadays like water, and it surely is urgent that we should take some steps to reduce our indebtedness. But apart altogether from the financial aspect, I would again urge that any weakness on the part of the Government in pressing our claim to an indemnity, in view of the great amount of interest with which the country insisted upon the matter at the General Election, would cause a disastrous shock to public confidence, and to the reputation of Parliamentary government in this country.

Brigadier-General CROFT: I have listened with the greatest interest, as I am sure the whole House has, to the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend who has just sat down. It may be said that it is unnecessary to raise this question again this evening, but the fact is that we have had a change in the strength of the policy of the Government on this subject for a very long time past. I would like to carry their minds back to the time when the cry of "No annexations," "No indemnities," was first produced in Russia via Berlin. There was a readiness amongst right hon. Gentlemen in control of the affairs of this country to assent to that formula as one which was a working basis, yet from that moment we have not known quite where we are in regard to that subject. Then we had President Wilson's fourteen points, and because it came from President Wilson once again there was very great
readiness in this country to accept what he suggested, presumably not on the same sort of grounds, but in order to keep in with the United States of America. Again I believe I am right in saying that the Prime Minister once addressed American troops in France, and I believe that once more there he disclaimed any intentions of getting any money from Germany as the result of the great losses we have incurred in this War.
But there is one point which I think the country differentiates very strongly about, and that is the old idea of forcing indemnities upon a conquered country, as opposed to a demand for the cost of the international police in seeing that civilisation was rescued from this kind of tyranny. I think I am voicing the opinion of the country at largo when I say and believe that a League of Nations, or any principle of that kind, cannot be successful if the Germans are not going to pay to the full for the result of their war on humanity, and were not placed in a worse position than those against whom they made war. We have seen in this morning's newspaper—a very well-informed newspaper—the statement which fills us with alarm. There are some who have the impression that Lord Milner, who has recently been in Paris, is not very anxious to see this question of indemnities enforced. We have reason to think that the mind of His Majesty's Government has not always been united on this question. We want it to be made perfectly clear here, because we shall not have many opportunities in this House, which was elected upon this issue above all others, and we came here with a mandate which we believe is the same mandate which has placed His Majesty's Government, upon the Front Bench by the enormous majorities which we were pleased to see they secured. We cannot face our constituents if we whittle down this demand. There may be doubts in the mind, for instance, of the Leader of the House as to whether Germany can pay the whole Bill, but what we do hope is that His Majesty's Government at the earliest possible moment are going to state what we are entitled to. It is not for them to prove the incapacity of Germany to pay. It is for them to let Germany know our claim, and afterwards for them to settle it with Germany if she cannot meet the whole cost.
There is another point in this connection. Although our ideas are becoming
more and more Utopian, and we desire to see the friendship of the nations in the days to come, we cannot neglect the fact that our burden is the heaviest, if not proportionately, at any rate, in the total, of all the Allied Powers, though everybody recognises, especially those who know the sufferings of France and Belgium, at first hand, that their claims come first. But in the sum total we have poured out more of our treasure, I believe I am right in saying, than any other country in the world, and therefore we ought not to be pressed always to give way to the pressure of the United States on this or on any other subject. There is another side of this question which is of extreme importance, of which no real mention has been made. The whole of the cost of rescuing the German Colonies and the Turkish territories from the tyranny from which they have suffered has been borne by this Empire. It is now proposed, I believe, in fact, that it has been practically agreed, though I presume the House of Commons will have a say in the matter, as well as the Parliaments of other countries, before it is ratified; but I believe that in principle it is agreed that there should be mandatory powers which would hold those territories for the League of Nations. It seems to me that the first duty of our delegates to Paris should be to point out that if the League of Nations is to assume the ownership or become the landlord of those territories, then the League of Nations ought to foot the bill which was incurred by the British Empire in conquering those territories. That is a question which seems to have occurred to very few. I am surprised that President Wilson himself, who I know is actuated by the most lofty motives, has not pari passu with his demand for a mandatory system suggested to the League of Nations that if they accept that principle they should find the money between the various countries making up the League to cover the cost of rescuing those territories. I can hardly believe that our delegates have not brought that point forward. I can hardly believe that they have examined the whole question of handing those territories over-to the League of Nations as the landlord in possession without putting forward a simultaneous claim that the cost to the British Empire, which has won those territories for the League of Nations, shall be borne by the partners in the League.
With regard to Russia, I do not know whether the Government has got any policy, but I am absolutely convinced of this, and I have been brought in touch recently with some scores of Russians, that unless we have a policy we are going to get into very serious trouble with regard to the Russian situation. Nothing can be more vital than that we should know where we stand on this Russian question. We have had attempts to talk to the Bolsheviks. The Prinkipo Conference proposal was the greatest blunder of modern statesmanship. One could only imagine that that, again, was prompted not alone from this country, but by others out side also. But that proposal was the worst day's work for the forces of law and order in the world in modern history. Bolshevism must come to an end, but the only question is when it is going to come to an end. What we as a Christian people have got to remember is that while we are waiting to see the fires of Russia burn themselves out not thousands, but possibly millions of people are going to die of starvation. That is the fact, and the first act I should have thought of our Government would have been to point out to Russia, by every means in our power, that we are against the Bolsheviks, and that never, never, can we have any talk with those people. And the second is this, to convince the forces of law and order in Russia, wherever they may be, that if they are against the Bolsheviks we are on their side, and that even though we cannot send great armies at this moment, at least they have our moral forces behind them and that we will do everything in our power to assist them.
9.0 p.m.
I think that it is forgotten that the dead of Russia number a greater total than the dead of any other of the Allies. Russia's sufferings have been more terrible than ours in this War—long before the Revolution took place. The part they took at the commencement of the War is forgotten far too easily by people in this House, who welcome to their bosoms those who were not by our side in those days. Anyone who studies the military history of the War will bear me out when I say that it is hardly believable that, but for the Russian attack in the East, the line at Ypres could have withheld the German assault, and that we could have held the position at that moment, that the Channel ports would not have fallen, and that Paris would not have fallen also, but for that
wonderful effort of our friends in Russia. I would like to emphasise what my hon. and gallant Friend has said, that it has been the traditional policy of this country to stand by our friends. We still have friends in Russia, and I hope and believe we are going to stand by them. This horrible nightmare in Russia is going to pass, but when it has passed are those forces who are going to win through going to be able to say, "England was our friend; the British Empire stood by us in our time of trial." That is why I hope that the Cabinet will speak with no uncertain voice on this subject.
They may say, "We are exhausted as a result of the War. We cannot send troops at this time." But let us give our moral support. I believe that I know what the Liberal tradition in the past would have been on this subject. I believe that Mr. Gladstone would have been one of the first to realise that if we, as one of the leading Christian peoples, allowed this chaos to continue in Russia, we should stand for all time condemned. We cannot trifle with these things. We must be on the side of right in Russia. Precisely the same might be said of the traditions of the old Tory party in this country. They would have stood by the forces of law and order in that country. What of Labour? The Labour party know perfectly well that this movement in Russia is not a Labour movement. The whole of the best of the Russian labouring classes are opposed to tins movement, and it is starvation alone that keeps them in it. It is the dregs of the community that have been organised. Therefore all parties in this country should bring pressure to bear on His Majesty's Government to show that we are behind the forces of law and order in Russia.
Even if we do not want to find ourselves engaged in some great commitments in Russia I would ask, has every possibility I been considered? It would be small satisfaction to us in this country if we were in the throes of Bolshevist tyranny, if our friends in Russia were to send expeditions to Orkney or to the Isle of Man, and forgot to send them to the centre of the nation. I hope that His Majesty's Government will consider in reference to this question of Bolshevism, that if you could stamp it out in its centres, in Petrograd and Moscow, it can be killed, and I would ask them to consider whether their forces should be on the outside of the cir-
cumference of the greater Russian Empire. If you are going to do anything in the way of intervention, I believe that a comparatively minor intervention by the British Fleet would do a great deal if it were made at the headquarters of Bolshevism. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will endeavour to persuade his colleagues to make it perfectly clear at the Peace Conference that the first duty of the Peace Conference is to secure peace. The League of Nations must be a contentious question. It should come afterwards. We want peace first with Germany, and the other enemy Powers. Then we want to see peace in Russia and order restored in Europe. After that we can turn to these great new reconstruction ideas, with which everybody sympathises, but which should not stand in the way of the immediate accomplishment of the demand of humanity which is the peace of the world.

Colonel BURN: I wish to associate myself strongly with the observations made by the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken with regard to Russia. Having been in Russia myself during the War I know by my own personal experience of the situation in that country and I feel perfectly convinced that we have got to stand by Russia. The great danger, which I am sure my right hon. Friend realises as we all do, is the possibility of the joining together of the German forces with the Bolshevists. That would create a situation of the greatest danger to this country because it would menace our Eastern possessions. I desire to make a few remarks and to ask a question or two as to what is being done with regard to the Kaiser and his arraignment before an International Board and an Allied Court. I do not profess to be well versed in International law, but I cannot believe that there is any quibble that is going to prevent us, the people of this country, from seeing the author of the War arraigned before a court of justice. I believe that the people of this country will never be satisfied until that is done. I have the misfortune to know the Kaiser and to actually have stayed with him, and I do know that for years before this War he came here to this country, and receiving hospitality at the hands of everyone in Great Britain he made use of those opportunities to learn all he could about our military position. He is the instigator of everything and used the scientific knowledge at his dis-
posal amongst his professors and learned men in order to invent the most fiendish devices for taking human life and causing the greatest amount of misery. I say that that man must be arraigned, and as well as the Kaiser there are others. There are the commandants of those prisoner of war camps where our men were in captivity for many months or in some cases even years. Those men are well known and their names and whereabouts, and it is our duty to see that they are brought to justice and whatever may be the verdict that they suffer for what they have done and the brutal treatment they instigated and saw carried out amongst our prisoners.
I should like the Committee to compare the treatment of the German prisoners in this country who really were almost as free men and certainly were better fed than many of our own working people, and who indeed received every consideration. Whatever else may be said when they return to their own country they can only say that they have been treated well. We know from authenticated proofs what our men went through in Germany. Almost in every instance the treatment was brutal, and I should like to know how many of our men were done to death either directly or indirectly by the treatment they received while they were in those prisoner of war camps. The men who authorised that treatment and instigated it and had it carried out must be brought to justice. We have also the known murderers of the heroine Edith Cavell and of Captain Fryatt, whose names are known throughout the length and breadth of this country, and indeed throughout the world. I say it is absolutely wrong if General Von missing. or whoever signed the death warrant of Edith Cavell is not brought to justice. I feel sure that this country will never be satisfied until this is carried out. I know that at my election, as well as all over the country, the subject which interested the electors most was this question of bringing to justice those men who behaved worse than savages. I know that this matter has been brought up in the House of Commons more than once at Question Time, but I do not think any satisfactory answer has been given. What I want to know and would like to ask my right hon. Friend is, how far has this subject been gone into at the Peace Conference? Are we to be told that there is
some quibble in international law which would prevent those people being brought to justice? After all we have done in this War, and after the way in which our soldiers have suffered, and, indeed, the country, no satisfaction will be given to the people who are left in this country until we know for certain that those men will be brought to justice. I was glad to receive an answer from the Leader of the House a few days ago as to the captured British guns which are now ornamenting the main streets of many of the great German towns. I understood from him that steps are being taken to have those guns returned to this country. I should have thought that that would have been made one of the first conditions of the Armistice, because if British guns were left in those public avenues in Germany, how could we ever expect that in the next generation the spirit of militarism would be stamped out. Surely the boys of this generation will grow up seeing the guns there, with all the advertisements as to what regiments had captured them and under what conditions they had been captured, and would it be possible that those boys, when they came to manhood, would ever believe that Germany had not won this War? I hope this matter will be carried through and that nothing will prevent our representatives at the Peace Conference demanding that these guns shall be immediately returned to this country. If my right hon. Friend will consider these matters and realise how very intensely the public feeling is centred on these points, he will, I am sure, be doing a service that will be appreciated in the country and will also show that not only he but all of us who have given pledges intend to see that those pledges are carried out.

Mr. MACMASTER: The first point to which I wish to draw attention is that the relationship of this country to Germany is very different indeed from that of the United States of America. The United States came into the War at a very late stage, and her part in the War was not comparable to the efforts of this country. Then, when the United States came into the War, we had the announcement of her President that they did not come into the struggle with any object of territorial acquisition or monetary gain, and we had the express statement that they would not demand any indemnities for themselves. They so defined their position before President Wilson put down his Fourteen
Points, and, whatever may be the value of those points, it is perfectly evident that from the American point of view they were points which they wished to obtain without the payment of any indemnity whatever. The position of this country and of France is very different. We had a war forced upon us. It was not a voluntary matter, but we really had war forced upon us, and we were, therefore, well entitled to say, when we conquered, that the enemy should make good the cost of the War and should pay an indemnity, and, so far as I can see from my examination of all the documents, we have never renounced that right in any shape. It is suggested that we did so in connection with our negotiations with the United States, but if we did so impliedly we never did expressly, and I do not think we did impliedly. Every hon. Member knows well that in the General Election the strongest card that we played all round was this, that so far as justice could be asserted against the Emperor of Germany and his co-murderers they should be punished; secondly, that indemnities should be claimed against Germany for the cost of the War; and, thirdly, that proper provision should be made in this country in regard to aliens in it and with regard to the future immigration of aliens into this country. In addition to that, there was, of course, the great necessity of doing justice to our soldiers and sailors who won the War for us; for, after all, whatever the politicians may say, the soldiers and the sailors were those who won the War. There is no doubt whatever that, at least, the Coalitionist party were pledged up to the hilt to see that the pledges which they gave in reference to these matters were carried out, and we all look to the Government to see that they are carried out; but we hear from time to time rumours as to a compromise, and that we are not to have indemnities and are not entitled to reparation. All that causes anxiety. There is also a feeling that the German Emperor and his co-conspirators are not being punished. I realise to the full the difficulties the Government have with regard to that question. The German Emperor is not triable before any international tribunal that exists. A tribunal might be created to try him but when the great Emperor of the French surrendered to our forefathers he was not given a trial, and though he said he surrendered to the most generous of his enemies, it was decided that he should be carried to St. Helena, where he ended his days. It
may be that the proper course with regard to the German Emperor is that he should be confined in some place where he might repent his misdoings during his reign in Germany, because undoubtedly, though I hold nearly every German equally culpable, he had the power to stop a great deal of the outrages and barbarous treatment that were extended to our countrymen who were prisoners in his hands. Perhaps the greatest punishment that that man might have to submit to would be imprisonment for life in a French prison where he might be pointed at from day to day as an example of the downfall of a tyrant who caused such fearful bloodshed.
But I wish mainly to refer to the question of an indemnity as distinguished from reparation. There is a good deal of misunderstanding with regard to that. There is no absolute right to an indemnity. An indemnity is something that you demand because you have the power to recover it, and therefore you impose it. That is the interpretation that Germany put upon indemnities. Look at the indemnity they imposed on Rumania and on Russia, and look at the indemnity they imposed on France for the cost of the War of 1871, which was not brought about by France herself, but which they themselves put into operation. Therefore, if we have the power to impose an indemnity on Germany for the fair cost of the War we are quite justified in doing it. An indemnity is a different thing from what is ordinarily understood by reparation. I pointed out this afternoon when a question was asked with regard to this subject and when the Leader of the House told us, as we knew, that the original terms of the Armistice were in French. They were also put in English and in German, but the official copy, the authentic copy, is in the French language, and therefore it is to the authentic copy of the Armistice that we must go. When you look at the authentic copy of the Armistice, in the French language, you will see that the phrases there used are phrases that are quite familiar to those who know the French language, and that they have a special reference to what is known in the French system as "civil damages," damages to the civilian—damages for civil injury done to the individual. They have no reference to anything in the nature of an indemnity. The words in the French version are "Reparations des dommages." In the English version, "Reparation for damages done." These are the corre-
sponding equivalent expressions, one in French and the other in English. Both expressions are a clear reference to the civil and ordinary damages that are done to the individual for aggression upon his property or rights, and not to damages between State and State. The right to damage for injury caused between State and State is expressly provided for in the preliminary portion of that same Article of the Armistice, in these words, in the English language:
Financial Clause. With the reservation that any future claims and demands of the Allies and the United States remain unaffected, the following financial conditions are required.
"Future claims and demands" is not a very good translation, if I may say so, of the official and authentic copy by which the matter is covered, because in the French copy the words are "Réclamation ulterieure," which means further claims, not "future" claims but "further" claims. Therefore, the rights of the Allies to indemnities, or any further claims which they choose to assert, are perfectly maintained and are distinct. Therefore it is a mistake to talk about this Committee in Paris, which is looking into the question of claims, as a Reparation Committee. It may be called that for the purposes of convenience, if you like; it is not merely taking into account the claims for the civilian population, but I have no doubt, also, the claims which the respective nations will have against Germany. These words, in the English version, "Damages done," can easily be connected with what transpired a short time before, because after President Wilson's Fourteen Points were submitted to the Allies, and they had an opportunity of considering them—whether they considered them as fully as they should have done I know not—at all events they made some express reservations with regard to the Freedom of the Seas—they could not take his view. They also made some other express reservations with regard to this very matter of damages to the civilian population, because in the Fourteen Points he spoke about the restoration and free evacuation of Belgium as one of his conditions. When the Allies came to consider these terms they put it down expressly in writing—and the Leader of the House will agree with me in that—as they did not wish that there should be any misunderstanding as to what the restoration and evacuation of Belgium meant—that it must be distinctly understood that
these terms included all damages done—note the repetition of the words in the Armistice terms,
compensation for all damages for aggression done to the civilian population whether from the air, or on the sea, or on the land.
Here was the reservation at that stage of the damage done to the civilian population of the country, and in the Armistice we find a similar provision for damages done. It does not insert the word civilian, and it would have been unnecessary to have done so. But there is the express reservation in the 19th Clause for all further claims of any kind whatever.
So the position we are really in now before the Conference is this, and the position we are presenting to Germany is this: We want claims not merely for the civil population, not merely in this country or in Belgium, or wherever the injury was done to the civilian population, but we have the claim of the State to assert; no doubt a very large claim, and, as my lion. Friend who spoke a short time ago said, it is not a question now whether Germany is able to pay or not, but it is a question of what the claim is, and whether it should not be presented and be pressed, just as any claimant in a Court of justice presses his claim, irrespective of the question whether the defendant is able to find the money or not. I am not one of those who think that Germany is a poor country, or who would give easy terms to Germany, and I do not think the Leader of the House is one either. I have every confidence in the statement that he has made with regard to this. But this I say, that there are many assets in Germany, apart from the ability to pay extended over a period of years.
I do not wish to digress, and I will keep to this point, and not enlarge into the grave areas of political survey; but let us look for one moment to some of the assets in addition to those mentioned by my hon. Friend. There is the possession and ownership of the Kiel Canal. I do not know what that canal cost. It must have cost over £100,000,000 sterling, possibly£200,000,000 sterling. It is of great commercial utility. It need not be used merely as a war means of transportation, and it must have great commercial utility. If Russia is to be restored, look at its value to new Russia! If Poland is to be restored, and if we are to stand by new Poland, and Dantzig is to be its port,
with the whole trade of the Vistula and the Baltic before it, with free access to it, and free exit from it, how important the canal must become! Look at the profit in connection with the use of the canal. May it not be of great commercial value, and one of the things which we might take, not for our whole claim, but as part of the items in the claim? If we do not take that as part of the indemnity to us—a small part it must be—there is this further consideration: What if we internationalise that canal, giving to each of the Allies a share in proportion to their effort in carrying on the War? If we give to England 30 per cent., to France 20 per cent., to the United States15 per cent., to Italy 10 per cent., to new Russia 10 per cent., to Poland 5 per cent., to Denmark 5 per cent., and to Belgium 5 per cent., and create a great international company operating that canal? No doubt they would operate at a profit. There are many ways in which we might apply for the indemnity other than in cash, because I thoroughly realise that the Germans cannot pay the whole of their debt in gold, and certainly cannot pay it at once, but that they should be made to pay, I think, there can be no doubt whatever in equity. Even in addition to equity are we not bound hand and foot to make them pay as a just claim for a war forced upon us to the extent of their ability to pay. That is what we said at the General Election. That is what the hon. Gentleman said, and the Prime Minister said. It was upon that score mainly that the elections were won. Consequently, I think that our deputies representing us in Paris, and the Ministry in this country should take the strongest ground they possibly can in support of these proposals, because I do not think we should be forgiven by the people of this country if we gave way in this respect. Therefore, I submit with great confidence that in the determination of this question there should be no backsliding. It is the interest of everyone in this country that our position should be maintained, it is the interest not merely of political parties but of all parts of the country as a whole. We are committed to it, and therefore we should go forward strongly, and maintain the position that has been put before the House, and the Country.

Mr. THOMAS: I hope the hon. Gentleman will stick to his principles to-
morrow. He has reminded the Committee that he and his friends were committed during the General Election to certain clearly defined principles. He said that they were committed to hanging the Kaiser, and to making Germany pay. May I remind him that they were also committed to the principle that there should be no Conscription? When he is so anxious that he and his friends should have due regard to their election promises, I want to remind him to keep clearly in mind all the issues, and not one that particularly suits him. At all events, I do not regret that this all-important question of the making of peace and the peace terms is raised, because in my judgment there is no issue so important and likely to have so far-reaching an effect upon the future of this country as the question of an early peace. The very remarkable thing is that everyone who has spoken about the delay in the peace terms has got one stock answer, and that is, that the Peace of Frankfurt took five months, and that was only between two nations; therefore, according to that logic, this peace ought to take about five years.
I want to remind the House that the one essential thing above all else at which we ought to aim is to be able at least to make a peace with an ordered Government. Hon. and right hon. Members must be disturbed by the events that are now taking place in the Central Powers. Anyone who thinks for a moment what the situation is, or tries to visualise the future, cannot help but realise that if the peace is dragged on, and if in a month or six weeks the Germans are asked—not to come in to discuss peace, please observe—but, according to what seems to be a clearly-defined notion, merely to be called in to ratify certain documents; then, supposing Scheidemann having been deposed—not deposed by the old regime, not deposed in the interests of a monarchy, but deposed by the Bolsheviks in Germany—then when that document is presented, supposing their answer is "No, there is no one to sign any peace terms. Do what you like," what is the situation in this country? I know the glib answer you get—that you must have an Army of Occupation. People who make that answer have no knowledge whatever of the feeling, temper, and dangerous situation that exist in this country, and certainly cannot realise that people to-day, in spite of all the horrors
that we hear of in Russia, in spite of all the condemnation of the Bolshevik Government, in spite of all that is said about that form of Government, the great mass of the working classes in this country, without hesitation, say, "Never mind what the Russia Government may be; it is no business of ours to interfere with it."
Therefore, we are brought right up against the very object of to-morrow's Bill. Whatever else this country went to war for, whatever else was responsible for 5,000,000 of our men volunteering their lives—without Conscription, observe—whatever else was responsible for the courage, valour, and heroism during those four years, no one can pretend that our people were influenced, guided, or actuated by either a selfish or an ulterior motive. They did not enlist for the purpose of adding a yard to the British Empire. They did not enlist for the purpose of giving effect to any materialistic ambitions. They went to war because they believed that there was the challenge of militarism against freedom, and now they are told to-day that there is a delay in the peace terms, not because of the difficulty of giving effect to the Armistice terms, not because of the difficulty of giving effect to the intentions of this country, but because they want to find another natural frontier for France. That is the diplomatic way in which it is put. Alsace and Lorraine are now accepted, and rightly accepted—I do not complain—as being restored to France, but I ask any hon. Member of this House if, twelve months ago, you had told an English audience that, in addition to Alsace and Lorraine, there was to be other territory called, for frontier purposes, the natural boundary of France, could you have got a volunteer to fight in this War, or could you have maintained the prestige of this country as a whole? [Hon. Members: "Yes!" and "No!"] Of course, I do not want to quarrel. Hon. Members are as much entitled to their view as I am to mine. I put this proposition: If that were so, why was it that, throughout the whole four years of this War, the one great appeal made to our people was not to add any territory to any country, but merely to make it a fight for justice and right as against any Imperialistic consideration? [AN HON. MEMBER: "And safety!"] And safety. I agree we could not have justice without safety. But then comes the question of
the definition of safety. If Germany is compelled to abolish Conscription, what becomes of the claim of frontier?
But I would put a stronger argument than that. Are frontiers, from a military point of view, of any value to-day? Does any Member in this. House, in view of four years' experience of aerial activity, dare suggest that any question of frontier is a military guarantee, as it was four years ago? What is the use of talking of the Rhine being a natural frontier, when you know perfectly well that even our own island country is not immune, in spite of our Navy to-day? It really brings us back to this: that so far as this country is concerned we have got to face the facts as to whether we are out for a lasting peace or a temporary triumph. I submit that we have two illustrations to guide us. Germany is the first. Germany's treatment of France in 1870 was brutal, callous, indifferent, and selfish. Everyone admits that. Everyone admits as well that that very treatment was responsible for setting the germs of this War. It created in the minds of every French man, woman, and child a spirit of hatred and revenge which found expression even in this War. No one would pretend for a moment that such a policy was a success. Everyone would be compelled to admit that it was a failure.
Take the second illustration. A few years ago Germany's peace terms with Russia were put out. There again, Germany made the mistake of showing the iron hand. There again Germany prostituted her power. With what result? Disaster to Germany! Let us, however, take the illustration of our own country in respect to South Africa. Hon. Members can read the report of the Debates in the House as to what happened at this very box from which I am speaking in respect to the measure then put forward of self-government for South Africa. Those who introduced the Bill felt that the only way to make a friend and ally of that country was to show that we were just, and desired to do the right thing. Would any hon. or right hon. Gentleman in this House dare to suggest at this stage of history that what we did in South Africa did not save us to a very large degree during the past four years? Therefore, I would draw a moral from these illustrations. It is an easy matter during an election to talk about hanging the Kaiser. Who is there in this House who would not agree that it was much too quick a death for him, or that hanging would be too
good! But we have to consider whether it would be worth while even making him a martyr in this respect. A second point is that it is an easy matter to go to the electorate in the hurley and burly of an election—and particularly having regard to the circumstances of the last election—and to say, "We are going to make Germany pay." It is like everyone of us being anxious when the Chancellor of the Exchequer presents his Budget, to see that everyone else but ourselves is taxed. It is quite an easy matter to do that, but it is not an easy matter for this House of Commons to face the thing in that way. This House of Commons have not merely to say, "Make Germany pay," they have also to say how Germany is to pay. That is the position of this House.

Colonel BURN: Present the Bill.

Mr. THOMAS: My hon. and gallant Friend says "present the Bill." Does he think that it is quite so simple a problem to those who have to present the Bill?

Colonel BURN: Yes.

Mr. THOMAS: If the mere presentation of the Bill would settle the question then this House would be agreed, and there need be no Debate. But no one who has given any consideration to the question assumes it will be settled in that way. Therefore, I rise to point out, however unpopular it may be, that in my humble view the first essential is to make an early peace. Eisner, who was so cruelly murdered a fortnight ago, told me himself in a long conversation I had with him a fortnight before he was murdered, that "the one thing your country of England ought to do is immediately to send food into Germany."

Mr. MOLES: Certainly, while we are short ourselves: feed the Germans while Britishers starve!

Mr. THOMAS: I am used to interruptions at mass meetings, and I appreciate them accordingly; but I am not used to that kind of interruption in the House of Commons. I merely proceed to speak hereof the man who for three years during the War was in gaol. He had opposed Germany. He had denounced Germany. Immediately he was released he led the Revolution, and was the first Republican President. I put a question to him and to others. I said, "If there is such a change
in Germany, how do you account for the Social Democrats, who have supported the War, being returned in such large numbers? We in England take that as an evidence that there is no change in the German people." The answer he and others gave to my question was this: "At the last election the German people had three alternatives. In the first place, they had the supporters of the old regime—that is, the monarchy. Again, on the other side, they had to choose between the Bolshevists, the Extremists, and the Social Democrats. Whatever (said Eisner) the view may be of the Social Democrats' action during the War, we at least felt that they were the safest party as against the two sets of Extremists." We may not agree with that explanation, but I put it to hon. Members that that at least is a feasible explanation. The point I am developing is that whilst we continue the blockade, whilst we allow starvation to take place, we ourselves are creating a situation that practically makes it impossible to make peace whenever the opportunity is presented. Again, I repeat that it is not because I do not want a peace. I do want a peace. But I want an ordered peace. I want reparation. I want to see Germany pay the full price of the Armistice terms. But I do not want to see us carried away by passion, bitterness, or hatred, or by our own personal feelings, forgetting that we can create a situation that will render peace permanently impossible. For that reason I have taken part in the Debate. I again repeat, I may not have contributed to the popular side, but I have contributed to what I believe to be the side of the British working classes and what they are thinking of—[Hon. Members: "No, no!"]—because I know, whatever may have been the position four years ago, this House will be making a mistake, and will be blind to what is happening outside, if the temper and changed feeling is not realised. You cannot have Bolshevism growing in the Central Powers, you cannot have the reaction following the War, without the danger of it spreading. I want to avoid it spreading, but I do not believe it can be avoided by merely skipping over the surface. I repeat that I want to see an early peace and a permanent peace, but let us keep our heads and not talk in glib phrases about hanging the Kaiser and making Germany pay without considering the consequences to our own country.

10.0 P.M.

Colonel GREIG: I cannot sit still in this Debate without expressing my view after the speech to which we have just listened. I do not yield even to the right hon. Gentleman opposite in my desire for an early peace. We have been fighting for an early peace and we have been shedding our blood for an early peace, but it would be madness to make peace before we knew the terms could be carried out and enforced. I represent a constituency in Scotland which is mainly composed of working people, and I consider myself as much a representative of working men as any hon. Member on the benches opposite. What did I find in my Constituency in Scotland? I was not strong enough at the early meetings on the question of indemnity and reparation, and the same thing applies to the adjoining constituency to my own, and I had the whole thing out there. The meetings would hardly listen to me because I was taking the line put forward by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. [An Hon. Member: "Political opportuneness!"] I do hope the hon. Member opposite will be quiet, and he will have his own turn. I sit for a majority of labouring people, and I can assure the House that the feeling in Scotland was that they were out for reparation and guarantees. What do I mean by guarantees? Will any hon. Member say he would believe the word of a German, written or sworn?
In the earlier stages of the War I thought, and I believe, President Wilson expressed the same view, that there was a difference between the governing classes in Germany and the people, but now I am perfectly certain, after four years of war with Germany, that the concentrated opinion of the people of this country is that there was no difference between the military party and the people of Germany, and there is no difference to-day. The military party are simply masquerading behind the Scheidemanns and the other people. In my opinion, at the present moment in Germany the military party are camouflaged behind Bolshevism, and I believe the military party could put down the disturbances if they so desired, but they are not doing it. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman opposite can do a good deal in the way of explaining to the people what is the real position of our peace terms at the present time. As far as we know the peace terms, Alsace-Lorraine will be retransferred to France, and is
there an hon. Member in the whole House who would say that is unjust? Not one. I have been over that country, and I know it. I have been around the whole battlefields of Metz, and there is a block of German territory on this side of the Rhine stretching from Metz to the Belgian frontier, and it would be very unwise if the French decided to take over and occupy that part of the frontier, but equally unwise if they omitted to make sure it should not be a basis of operations against them. They might have an equally good claim to Cologne, which years ago was a French town. Nevertheless, that country is German, and is largely occupied by Germans. It is, however, a mountainous country from which you could make a fresh descent on to the plains of France.
To what are the French entitled? Suppose in Scotland we had the Germans alongside of us just beyond the border, we would like to have a strong strategic frontier between us and them. The right hon. Gentleman opposite asked what difference does the frontier make now that there are aeroplanes. May I point out that it makes a great deal of difference? What were our difficulties during the air raids on London? It was that the German aerodromes were on the Belgian coast, and when they were driven away from them we are safe, and the French want the same thing. With regard to the stretch of country north of Metz, they want to make it impossible for the Germans to use that as a base for attacking them. The right hon. Gentleman talks about the Rhine not being a complete frontier. Some distance from the Rhine there is a line of hills that will pass into French hands and there will be a broad stretch between the Rhine and these hills where you could form your troops ready to cross the Rhine if the Germans attempted to come in again. What the right hon. Gentleman should explain to the people is a little geography as to the Rhine instead of getting into their heads any such foolish notion as that the French are going to take country which is German territory as well as Alsace-Lorraine.

Mr. THOMAS: As the hon. Member is lecturing me, I want to remind him that I know the country to which he refers, and I have been there much more recently than he has. I also want to remind him
that the purport of my speech was to show that this was not part of the Armistice terms.

Colonel GREIG: We are now talking about the final peace terms, and what we want to make sure of is that the final terms shall be such as shall form a sound basis against the fields and the cities of France being invaded again. If we visualise the position of the French after their experience in 1870 and in this War, I think, if we were in the same position as the French, we should ask for ourselves a great deal more than the French are asking for. Again I appeal to hon. Members opposite to try and keep cool and see straight on this subject. We are all at one on this matter. We want peace, and we want to get rid of militarism, but until the final peace terms are settled, and they have got to be settled among about thirty nations, it would be the utmost foolishness to give up any weapon which would enable us, in spite of German signatures or words of honour, or anything of that sort, to make perfectly sure that tills war does not recur in our time.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: The speech of the hon. and gallant Member opposite, and the tone of this House make me absolutely despair. Hon. Members appear to think that they are still living in a world before the War, when they were dealing with problems which could be solved by crowned heads and diplomatists. As things are going it looks as though we shall have in Germany a state of affairs exactly similar to that which we have in Russia at the present time, and it will be the fault of the diplomatists in Paris who are delaying peace in order to discuss these methods of annexation. If you have a Bolshevik regime in Germany, as you are very likely to have, because the state of affairs there gets daily worse, you may make what terms of peace you like on paper, but you cannot possibly have those terms carried out. You may claim your six thousand million damages, but if they have no government there which will sign the terms of peace, and which will see that the country for which they sign, them carries out those terms of peace, you might just as well put that piece of paper straight into the fire. Even if there is a Bolshevik Government, or otherwise which signs peace deciding that a certain indemnity is to be paid, you cannot possibly collect that indemnity without occupying Germany with your troops, and the occu-
pation of Germany to the tune of £400,000,000 per year is likely to cost this country a good deal more than the indemnity ultimately collected. What you want to do is to get what you can out of Germany in the way of cash, and to do that you must make certain definite suggestions. You must get an indemnity either, as the hon. Member suggested, in the form of canal dues, or canal ownership, or you must get it in the form of a royalty on coal or something of that sort. There are definite sums which can be obtained in this way, but, if you start putting forward gigantic claims, you make it impossible for any Government in Germany to extract them, and consequently impossible to get lasting peace in Europe.
Surely to-day we might recognise that we are dealing with a world which is moving straight towards the abyss of bankruptcy and starvation, and to talk about making France secure by grabbing territory when the whole world is getting less secure through indebtedness and starvation and through the utter incapacity of civilisation to stand up against the losses of the last four and a half years, seems to me to be inviting anarchy in the midst of this country. I do not want to see civilisation entirely upset. [Laughter.] Hon. Members really seem to think that it does not in the least matter as long as they can carry out their idiotic election pledges. We are here to talk as sensible individuals, and hon. Members, even new Members, must realise that there must be a difference in tone between the speeches made in this House and the speeches made on the hustings to constituents fresh from a desperate war of four and a half years. It is absolutely essential that we should realise that peace is necessary as early as possible, not in order to get reparation or to get security for territory, but in order to get security for civilisation and to prevent world bankruptcy.

Major CHRISTOPHER LOWTHER: I rise to point out, if I may, with all humility, a slight discrepancy in the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas). He reminded hon. Members of their election speeches with regard to the Conscription Act, and he seemed to say that if their pledges were kept a conscripted Army would cease to exist, and consequently the size of the Army would be materially reduced. He also seemed to say at the
same time that we should send food into Germany. In my view we have two weapons for enforcing peace terms upon the Germans. One is the Army of Occupation, and the other is the blockade. If we take away from ourselves both these weapons, we take away from ourselves the power of enforcing peace terms, and I venture to suggest that the right hon. Gentleman might possibly consider which of the two weapons he would prefer to take away, and which he would think it better that we should keep for enforcing peace terms. We are all agreed that the sooner they are made the better. It is no use flying off in these questions at a tangent. It is a question really of business. We have beaten the Germans, and we have to get such terms as we can out of them, terms that are within reason and within justice. One of these two weapons must be kept in our hands, and the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Members who follow him would be giving assistance to this House if they were to point out which weapon they think it would be best that we should hold for this specific purpose.

Mr. BONAR LAW: I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend upon having obeyed the command of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Newcastle (Colonel Wedgwood) and upon having spoken like a very sensible person. It seems to me that he has put the case exactly as it ought to be put. We certainly have to look at these questions from the point of view of justice, but we have also to look at them from the point of view of what is possible. I have listened to a very long Debate, covering a great variety of ground. It was an interesting Debate, but the House, I am sure, will forgive me if I take the view that the interest was rather in the speeches addressed to the Government than in the reply which would be made by the Government. Everyone of the subjects has been dealt with over and over again, and though in listening to the speeches I tried to think of something new which could possibly be said I entirely failed to do so. I shall, therefore, touch very briefly on the different subjects as far as I remember them.
We had, first of all, a discussion about Russia. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Christchurch (Brigadier-General Croft) spoke very strongly about what this Bolshevik
rule in Russia means, and what should be done in regard to it. I do not think there are many people in this country who now have any doubt as to what it means, and, personally, I am led to the conclusion that the real meaning of the rule which prevails in so large a portion of Russia is penetrating more and more throughout the whole of this country, and that our people are beginning to realise that in whatever direction improvement of conditions may lie and from whatever direction that better world of which we have heard so much is to come, it is not from that direction, from which nothing but ruin can come, ruin which applies far more severely to the very class that most needs to be elevated in Western Europe. That is very true. We are constantly giving very much more than moral support to the forces which originally took our side against the Germans, and which are now taking in our view the side of humanity against the kind of rule which I honestly believe cannot possibly last, and which, if it did, would be a scourge to the whole world as it is now to Russia. How can anyone say more than was said on this question by the Prime Minister? I have discussed it myself in Paris, not only with our Allies, but with representatives of very many classes of Russians. What more can be done except this, which we all recognise to be impossible? The Russians state that this force is entirely kept up by terror which may be very easily overthrown, but not one of them dreamt for a moment that there was anyone of the Allied countries which, after all the sufferings they had gone through, would be prepared to recommend that an army should be sent to put this force down. No one suggested that. In whatever direction salvation lies there really is no use in speaking as if this were a simple problem, unless you are prepared to do something like what the Germans did when they thought Russia was beginning to fall into the same state. They had to keep more than 1,000,000 men, and even then they were as far off as ever from conquering it. I do not wish to say that the Allies must not try to do something, and must not get a policy. It is more difficult when there are so many nations working together, and I entirely agree with what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War said on Monday, that if at the end of the Peace Conference we were to go away in the belief that we
had settled everything, and left the great bulk of Eastern Europe in chaos, it would be said that the League of Nations had been tried at the outset, and that at the outset it had failed. Something must be done, but I am not prepared to add a single word to what has been said on this subject by the Prime Minister.
The only other subject which excited wide interest was the question of indemnities. I am going to try to speak like a sensible man on this subject. The first thing I would say, and I think it is a sensible thing, is that the speeches we have listened to have not been directed with a view to getting any new declaration from the Government. They had two objects, one was to express the strong feelings of the hon. Gentlemen who made the speeches, another was to let the Government see—it was not necessary—that the feeling on that subject in the country and the House has not abated, but is as strong as ever, that the Government is expected to get the best terms which can be got out of Germany. That is quite true, but there was one thing which I rather regret in the speech of the hon. Member below the gangway. He said he had reason to believe that Lord Milner was not strong in the desire to make Germany pay. There is not a shadow of foundation for that. There may be differences of opinion as to the amount which Germany can pay and Lord Milner, in conversation with me, as no doubt with others, has expressed the view—I hardly like to say that I agree for fear I should be suspected of being friendly to the enemy—that some of the extreme figures mentioned are absolutely unobtainable. But that is very far indeed from saying that he or any one of us does not hold as strongly as any Member of this House that we are entitled to get from Germany every penny up to the full cost of the War providing Germany is able to pay.
During the whole of the Election I made speeches, like other people, and I never had the slightest doubt as to the justice of our demanding full terms—never—but I was careful not to hold out hopes which I believed could not be realised, that from that source we would be able to get rid of the immense debt which we now carry. It would be a great mistake to do that. The mere fact that Germany is morally bound to pay it is not of much value if you cannot get it. I noticed that some hon. Members said that the question whether or not she could pay is a question for her rather than for us. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]
Is that quite sensible? I quite admit that our right to make the full demand is undoubted, and not to make that perfectly clear would be foolish. But we have got to talk like sensible men. Supposing that in ordinary business somebody owed you a large sum of money. Suppose you were a banker, and the man could not meet his obligations. You have two ways of dealing with him. If you think the man has misled and swindled you, you may very likely say," I am going to make that man a bankrupt, whatever happens. On the other hand, if it is a matter of a large sum and you represent a bank and the shareholders in the bank, you will look at it a little from this point of view: "Shall I get more under a composition than by making the man a bankrupt?"
We really must look at this question a little from the point of view of what there is a possibility of getting out of Germany, and, having once done that, it is our business to get every penny we can. That is the whole case. I dislike the idea of some of the fabulous sums which are stated as if we could secure them. For instance, my hon. Friend who introduced this question quoted a figure. I believe I saw it in some newspaper, and probably he got it from the same source. If he will think, he will see what it means. He said that the Westphalian coal mines alone ware worth £170,000,000,000. Does my hon. Friend realise that that is very nearly ten times the whole of the estimated wealth of Germany before the War?

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: I said it was much more than the cost of the War. I did not name that as the figure we might recover. I said that was the security which the Germans could offer.

Mr. BONAR LAW: The hon. Gentleman has not understood my argument. He never suggested that we could get £170,000,000,000, but he said that the Westphalian coalfields were worth that. Unless my memory is wrong, the estimate of the total wealth of Germany, including the Westphalian coalfields, before the War was only about one-tenth of the sum he named for the Westphalian coalfields alone?

Brigadier-General CROFT: That was a German estimate.

Mr. BONAR LAW: All I shall say is that if a German made that estimate he is not a sensible man £170,000,000,000 is worth, at an annual value of 5 per
cent., £8,500,000,000. That is at least four times more than the total income of Germany before the War. So it does not matter who made the estimate—it is a very unreliable one.
I do not in the least object to having these subjects raised. It does no harm to let the world see that the British House of Commons, in this respect representing the British people, has no doubt whatever as to justice of our claim for the whole cost of the War, and has determined that we shall put as large a claim on it as Germany can be made to pay. That is the question. But it does not really, so far as the Government is concerned, make the case any stronger to have me or some other member of the Government answering the same question in the same way at least once a week. There is no change in our policy. We want to get all we can towards the terrible burden which lies upon this country. No one but a madman would deny the justice of our claim. If you assume we are going to have no indemnity, and that Germany is going to pay nothing, would it not mean that the nation which in our view not only caused all these horrors but caused them deliberately, and would have made her victims pay to the last farthing—if there is to be nothing of that kind, Germany will start in the commercial race much better off than the nations whom she invaded and pillaged. There can be no justice in that. But we must in all these things see clearly what we are aiming at, and do our best to get the most we can to lower and lessen the burden which lies upon this country.
I was told my right hon. Friend opposite remarked that the essential thing was to get peace quickly so that we could know where we are. I entirely agree with him. It is not merely the danger of Germany falling into Bolshevism, though I think that is a real danger, but the greatest anxiety of the Government at this moment is to get our own trade and industry started in the most effective way. As long as the blockade continues in its present form, which applies not merely to the enemy countries but to a certain extent to the countries adjacent, trade conditions cannot be restored, and in our own interest therefore it is of the utmost importance that we should get a settlement which will enable this to be done as soon as possible. There I come again
to the remark of my hon. Friend below the Gangway. We must have some method of making as sure as we can that the peace conditions will be carried out, and that we shall be in a condition to enforce them. We must have some means of doing that. The speech of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Churchill) was, as far as I could judge by some comments, entirely misunderstood, for he expressed exactly what I am saying. We must have some means of doing that. If we can the sooner we end the blockade, which is bad for women and children and sick people in Germany, and is bad for us also, with the knowledge that we can rely on our weapon, the better for this country and better for everyone.

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I beg to move, "That Item, Class II., Vote 4 (Home Office) be reduced by £100."
I am raising the question of the treatment of conscientious objectors in prison, which is one that merits the immediate attention of the Government. I think hon. Members do not really understand what has been going on recently in the prisons of this country. We have now 1,500 conscientious objectors in prison. They are known as the absolutists—men who refuse alternative work. Most of these people are religious fanatics who reject the idea of taking any part whatever in war. All of them are people who are obviously in prison for conscience sake, and not as shirkers, because they have declined alternative work, which is made easy for those who are shirkers but is difficult for those who wish to avoid participation in any way in the War. These are people whose consciences have been proved over and over again, owing to the fact that they have been imprisoned repeatedly on sentences of six months' imprisonment, which in sum total amount to over two and a half years' imprisonment on the average—that is to say, every one of these men has voluntarily consented to go back to prison five times, thereby proving to any fair-minded man that their objections are certainly conscientious ones.
Therefore we may say that every one of these 1,500 men is unjustly imprisoned. I do not mean unjustly because they have been sentenced over and over again for the same offence, but unjustly because the original Act of Parliament, passed in 1916,
included a Clause intended to exempt people exactly such as these from being sent into the Army or sent to prison. Therefore these people are definite conscientious objectors, who ought to be exempted from imprisonment, and they have shown their conscientiousness by being two and a half years in prison. One was content with the Government answer, that they could not possibly let these men out because they pointed out that the Army outside—which is a gross slander on the Army outside—would object to any of these, men being released before the men were released from the Army. That objection was raised by the War Office. I venture to say that it will not find support from any of the rank and file of the Army. To continue the imprisonment of people who have been in prison for two and a half years is not the sort of thing which the British Tommy would ask the Government to do for him. The conditions now have become infinitely worse.
The new Home Secretary has started by making a change in the prison administration which has made things much worse than before for conscientious objectors. I do not understand why he has made the change, but the change certainly has been made. It is exemplified by the change in the governor of Wandsworth gaol. The Committee should understand that the conscientious objectors have a way of going on hunger strike to get out of prison. I do not know that I should like to go on a hunger strike myself, even to get out of prison, but possibly after two and a half years in gaol one does feel that way. All over the country in the gaols, in Newcastle, Maidstone, Winchester, and Wandsworth, you have these men deliberately starving themselves in order to get out of prison, just as in the old days the suffragettes used to get out of prison. But in the case of these men they are forcibly fed. Forcible feeding can be more or less a humane practice—that is to say, it the doctors have not got an animus against the patient the forcible feeding is more or less, I will not say pleasant, but at any rate not particularly bad for the nerves or health of the people operated upon, but in this case you have got a very strong animus on the part of the people who administer the forcible feeding against the conscientious objectors.
Over and over again I hear the same tale from these people who have come out under the Cat and Mouse Act. The governor himself is a tolerant and more or less a humane man, but the prison doctor exercise the powers of forcible feeding with the maximum amount of force and violence—almost cruelty. For instance, in Newcastle Prison—I will give this as an instance of callousness on the part of a doctor who was there—these men—I will not be certain of the number, whether it was seven or thirteen; it was one or the other—were forcibly fed, and all were fed with the same tube, which is pushed up the nose. They were not allowed to have clean tubes for each man. One of them was suffering from tuberculosis and another from a disease of the nose—not a pleasant thing. Obviously a doctor who will insist on using the same dirty tube for man after man is a man who ought not to be in charge of conscientious objectors, or ought not to have any power to add to the torture of forcible feeding. The governor was complained to, and, being a humane man, he arranged for more tubes and finally got one tube per man. That is not a solitary case. At Maidstone some complaints were made about the treatment of the prison doctor, and that he was a brutal man. The prisoners went on strike against the prison doctor, not against the imprisonment or the prison rules, but solely against the prison doctor, because of the conduct that went on there. When you have men of a decent class in life who in prison are abused and sworn at as being conscientious objectors, by the doctor, naturally it makes things much more difficult. The ordinary inhabitants of prison, I suppose, are accustomed to being sworn at and having applied to them all the epithets that the lower classes apply to conscientious objectors. But many of these people are religious people, who have come from quiet homes, and they are not accustomed to that sort of thing, and owing to the language of the doctor and the very rough treatment they received, those people in Maidstone Prison have struck and are being forcibly fed.
The worst case, I think, is that at Wandsworth Gaol, and this I particularly charge against the present Home Secretary. There has been a new governor appointed, apparently, in Wandsworth Gaol, and his arrival was heralded by a
promise of the very strictest discipline. I wish to read to the House a letter I have received from one of the people who suffered under this new Governor. I want the House really to understand the sort of things which go on and about which we hear nothing at all. I do not vouch for the exact accuracy of everything in this letter, but the man is an educated man whose word I should naturally trust. It deals with friends of mine in this prison. This is the extract from the letter:
On the afternoon of Thursday last a new Governor arrived, and on approaching C wing of the prison where about fifty conscientious objectors and twelve other prisoners were lined up waiting to be taken to the 'shops,' he became very excited, and waving his stick, shouted, 'I will not have these stinking C.O.'s mixed up with respectable men.' 
This is an officer and a gentleman.
Some naturally resented this and Comrade Harris—
He is the son of a Quaker Minister who visits the prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs Gaol. I know him well—
who has acted as an orderly to an instructor for nearly two years, and who has a clean prison record said, inadvisably perhaps, but not without provocation, 'Thank you, sir.' The Governor immediately ordered him to be taken to the strong room and put in irons. The Governor then, for no conceivable reason and without any provocation, said, 'I have full power from the Secretary of State. To hell with the C.O.'s, to hell with them.' Everybody was then threatened with 'bread and water,' but why, I do not know, for nothing had happened to warrant these threats and epithets. The men were then ordered to lead on for the shops, which they did, and some being annoyed at what had passed commenced cheering and singing. On their arrival at the door of the association shed they were ordered by the Governor to turn back, and they had no sooner obeyed the order than the Governor commenced to use very abusive language. For instance, pointing to me, he said, 'Look at that bloody swine.' Since his arrival the new Governor has never spoken of the conscientious objectors in our hearing without being abusive. These association men were then ordered back to their cells, about half a dozen being indiscriminately picked out for punishment, among them some who, like Comrades Reed and Pratt, did not take part in the cheering or singing and who disagreed with breaking the prison rules. On Friday morning, about fourteen men were charged with various 'crimes' such as talking and singing, and all were punished.
There is more which I will not read, but comrade Ford had his arm twisted and was caused much pain. Comrade Thompson, charged with banging his door, was told by the Governor that if he did it again the Governor would "bang his bloody brains out." I cannot read the rest
of the letter; it is all to the same effect. If that if the sort of man, an officer and a gentleman, who is selected by the Home Secretary to take charge of conscientious objectors, I think we should prefer the Home Secretary who preceded him, and we may also ask that there should be some sort of inquiry into this man's conduct. These men have, of course, gone on hunger strike. There were others on hunger strike a month ago who were released on 6th February and have now been taken back. I suppose they will go on hunger strike again, and if they get under a prison doctor and governor of this kind, what can the result of such a life be? Many of the conscientious objectors have died already, and many more have gone insane, and are we in England in the twentieth century to tolerate a Home Secretary and a governor who torture men in prison and drive them insane? This is not a joking matter. It is a question whether we in this House are to stand up for men who are innocent of any offence whatever and who are put to the torture in this way.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I only intervene because I had a great deal of personal experience of dealing with conscientious objectors First of all I want to say this, that I have not the slightest doubt, in my own mind, that eight out of ten of them certainly were men whose objection to military service was not founded on any fear of military service, but was a conscientious objection contemplated by the Act passed by Parliament. I do not think anybody can charge me with showing them anything approaching undue consideration. I think I took a pretty strict line with them, but there is one thing I must add, and it is this, that I am quite, certain that a very large proportion of these men who are now in prison would not have gone to prison if they had been fairly treated by the tribunals. I do not make any special claim for the body over which I had the honour to preside, but I will only say this, that in not one single instance in the panel which sat upstairs here do I recollect a conscientious objector refusing to take national service. And what was the reason? It was simply because we heard all they had to say, we treated them as, I think, Parliament expected them to be treated, and as Parliament directed us to treat them, and there was not a single instance of any case which came before our panel upstairs where national service was refused. My point with regard to that is this: A
very large number of the men to whom my hon. and gallant Friend has referred would not have gone to prison if they had been fairly treated and given a legitimate opportunity of exercising the option which Parliament wished to give them. My other point is that these men were directed to be exempted from military service by an Act, placed on the Statute Book after very grave consideration by Parliament. They refused to render the military service which was demanded of them by the Government, and they accepted the penalty. They have paid that penalty several times over. Is it consonant with the dignity of this country to pursue them by what I really cannot help thinking are methods of petty persecution, which are not worthy of the dignity of a Government or of the British Army itself. I do not believe there is a single soldier who, if he really thinks this out, would not say: "Very well, let them go. They have been in prison several times over; they have been punished for it. Let them go back to their ordinary avocations." I do not join with my hon. And gallant Friend at all in what he said about the present Home Secretary, because I am quite sure he is striving to perform a very difficult and painful duty, but I do suggest to him that the time has now come when these men, having paid the full penalty of their breach of the law, might be discharged from prison.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): I can assure my right hon. Friend who has just sat down that no one appreciates more keenly than I do the painful nature of the task involved in keeping men in prison who are thoroughly religious, conscientious men, and sending them back there time after time. But the matter is one of some considerable difficulty, as I am sure my right hon. Friend knows. So far as what he said about the treatment by tribunals is concerned, I agree with him to a certain extent. There is no doubt about it that many men were led by the tribunals to see the advisability of accepting work of national importance, but I can assure him that there is not a man in prison to-day who could not be out tomorrow if he would undertake work. They will not do it, and no single man would do it. I have had conversations with friends of my own, leaders of the Quaker persuasion, and I have asked them about their own co-religionists. I am talking now of the men who think that to
make any terms is a compromise with their conscience and a sin against their God. These men would not even undertake the work of working as civilians in Belgium to repair the ravages of war. It is a very painful thing, but these men are very difficult to deal with.
Before I go into the whole question of the conscientious objector and his imprisonment, might I just refer to what was said by the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Wedgwood) about the prison governor at Wandsworth. He has made very serious charges against this gentleman. He has read a letter, which I think is probably similar to one which has been sent already to the Home Office, dealing with this gentleman, and making these charges against him—charges of a very gross character, charges of gross ill-treatment, of conduct absolutely inconsistent with that which any governor of a prison ought to show, of gross bad language, and go on. I do not know whether the hon. and gallant Gentleman has received from the Department the reply to the question where, if my memory serves me, it was he who put upon a letter dealing with a similar charge. My memory may be wrong but my impression was that it was the hon. and gallant Gentleman himself who had sent in the question which enabled me to make an inquiry into the whole subject. If it was not the hon. and gallant Gentleman, I withdraw. Did he get an answer?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I did not put a question on that subject at all that I remember.

Mr. SHORTT: My recollection may be at fault, but I know the charge was made practically identically in the terms which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has used to-night. The same story about the man being put in manacles, taken to a strong room, and so on; about calling him "a bloody swine," and other things of that sort, were indicated in the charge. An hon. Gentleman asked for, and I was able to have, an inquiry into the whole thing. Therefore, in common justice to a gentleman who cannot defend himself here, I must tell the Committee that every one of these charges is wholly denied.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Denied—but who conducted the inquiry?

Mr. SHORTT: Really the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows perfectly well who conducted it—an official from the Home
Office. But as he has read that letter, I am equally entitled, on behalf of a gentleman who is not here to speak for himself, to explain that those things must not be taken to be admitted. They are absolutely denied.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will you hold an inquiry with an impartial person present?

Mr. SHORTT: I will hold any inquiry into a charge of that kind that any Member of this House likes to ask, and the hon. and gallant Member may take it from me these charges are made in the most reckless way. They are made without any attempt to see whether they are right. The hon. Members who make them know perfectly well the charge goes out to the world, the man cannot answer for himself, irreparable injury may be done to his reputation, extraordinary pain caused to himself, his wife, family, and relations, and he has no means of meeting it. Therefore, I do say that hon. and gallant Members and other hon. Members ought to make some inquiry before these charges are made publicly in this sort of way. If any hon. Member will write to me at the Home Office making charges of this kind, suggesting that they are charges which require to be investigated by some independent person, I will undertake to see that some independent person—a barrister of standing, if you like—is present at the inquiry which is made. But I think the Committee will agree that before charges of this kind are made against any man in a position which binds him to silence, and which may cause him great injury and must cause him great pain, some sort of attempt should be made to test the truth of those charges. With regard to the question of the conscientious objectors, I quite agree that it is a very painful position that highly religious men should go back to prison time after time. They are not all highly religious men. Do not let the Committee imagine for an instant that the whole of the conscientious objectors, or even more than half of them, are of the highly religious kind of which my right hon. Friend spoke.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I spoke not only of a religious belief, but of an ethical one.

Mr. SHORTT: I am not sure I quite accept the expression, but I think we mean the same thing. The trouble of the matter is that the conduct of many of
these men is such that the men who are really religious repudiate all connection with it. I myself have letters from conscientious objectors, men of the highest possible character, who repudiate any connection whatever with men in the same prison because of their conduct and the kind of men they are. But I would prefer to deal with this question from the point of view of what I may call the good men. Because these are the cases which must be replied to. These men have been before a tribunal. The tribunal has decided that these men should perform service of some description. They refuse to do it. There is only one way in which they can be released from prison. They must be demobilised. That is the only possible way—discharged from the Army. So long as they are in the Army, the moment they are out of prison they must go back to the Army, and the result is that the soldier cannot help himself. He hates the position. He has to give the men military orders, and the men must obey.

Lord H. CECIL: These are all rules the Government can alter.

Mr. SHORTT: Parliament may alter them.

An HON. MEMBER: Relax them at once!

Mr. SHORTT: The War Office can shut its eyes. One could ask the War Office to shut its eyes. But it is another thing to say that the Government can alter these Regulations. The Government cannot alter them, but the House can.

Lord H. CECIL: The House of Commons can be asked to alter the Military Service Acts. Why do not the Government bring in a Bill?

Mr. SHORTT: Because they do not think it right or necessary to do so. However that may be, the fact remains that the Regulations are there. There are men who are not willing to accept anything. Nothing but the absolute surrender of the Government to these men is what they will accept.

Lord H. CECIL: Religious fanatics are always like that.

Mr. SHORTT: That may be. The Noble Lord possibly has more knowledge of religious fanatics than I have.

Lord H. CECIL: Why not be guided by my advice then, who confessedly has more knowledge than yourself?

Mr. SHORTT: Because I do not think that the advice of religious fanatics is always sound, though it may be a good guide for the judges. This then is the position. Those men must either be demobilised or dealt with as I have said. We do not want to keep these men in prison. But the fact remains that the moment one of them comes out on the ground of ill-health and goes home, that letters are written by parents, brothers, and sisters to the men in the forces, and they say, "Why are not you demobilised? Here is 'so-and-so,' a conscientious objector, who has come back." That is happening every day.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: What about the forcible feeding?

Mr. SHORTT: I will come to that. But the Government feel that they must have regard to fair play in the Army. If you have to demobilise someone, why not the men who have done the fighting? The conscientious objector may be as honourable as you like, but they have done nothing for their country. You cannot turn them out and say, "Go to another country where your notions and citizenship are more agreeable." We cannot do that; but at least we can say to the Army that we are not giving to the others what we refuse to the men who have been fighting and have been wounded.

The CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman press his Amendment?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Chairman proceeded, pursuant to Standing Order No. 15, to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose of the Vote.

Whereupon the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH [SALARIES AND EXPENSES].

Considered in Committee.

Question again proposed,

"That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parlia-
ment, of an Annual Salary not exceeding five thousand pounds to the Minister of Health; and of such other Salaries, Remuneration, and Expenses as may become payable under any Act of the present Session to establish a Ministry of Health."—[Mr. Baldwin.]

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

INCOME TAX (MARRIED WOMEN).

Whereupon Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 12th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Major TRYON: I rise to refer to a matter arising out of the answer given at Question Time by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. His answer was one dealing with a question put to him about the Income Tax and the position of married women, and the reply was:
It would not be possible to single out the question of taxing a married woman for consideration in advance of the findings of the Royal Commission. I hope their case will be fully put before the Commission, and in this case my right hon. Friend thinks it would not be useful to receive a deputation.
One question on this point was put by the hon. Member for Wood Green and the other by myself. I believe there is a general feeling that the present incidence of the Income Tax law upon married women is not fair, and that it is grossly unfair to add together the income of the husband and wife and treat it as one income. From this answer I gather that nothing is likely to be done to remove what we believe to be a serious injustice until the Royal Commission has reported. That will not be in time for the present Budget, and it may not be in time for the next Budget. Therefore I urge upon the Government that this great injustice shall be dealt with and considered now. I am not asking for the decision of the Government in advance of the Budget, but I am urging that it should be considered now, with a view to the difficulty being removed when the Budget is brought in.
What we complain of is that it is entirely wrong in principle, and it is in effect a tax on a legal marriage. If a man and woman are married, they are treated
differently under the Income Tax laws, and we regard that as exceedingly unfair. If I were to ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he considers a husband and wife to be two persons or one, he would be much too wise to answer. He would say, "Under which tax does this question arise," because under the Death Duties husband and wife are treated as two, but under the Income Tax they are treated as one. That seems to me to be wholly indefensible, illogical, and unjust. No one would conduct a business upon those lines, because it would not be considered honest. It may be said that there is some difficulty, but as a matter of fact a wife's income is already returned separately in amount though on the same paper. Therefore, this return does have to be worked out at the present time. If I seem impatient in raising this question, that is not a charge which can be made against those I represent, because it was brought up ten years ago by a former well-known member of my Constituency, and what has happened since has made the effects far more serious. Owing to the War an enormous number of women who have never worked before work now and their wages go into the family exchequer. Therefore, the principle of counting Husband and wife as one applies now in far more cases than before. Moreover, the Income Tax is levied on incomes actually lower, and, owing to the cost of living, on incomes relatively lower. I do not wish to be told that the financial needs of the nation are great. That is true, but when financial needs are great they lead to taxation which is also great. The burden of the tax is far heavier than before, and that fact is all the more reason for adjusting it evenly. I consider this to be an injustice to married people, the tax is not properly distributed, and I hope that the Committee will see their way to go further into the matter and not take up the attitude that the Royal Commission is in any way a bar to the consideration of it now. I hope that they will be prepared to deal with it in a satisfactory way in the coming Budget.

Mr. MACMASTER: I desire to associate myself with the views expressed by my hon. and gallant Friend. This tax really places a premium upon immorality, because the income of husband and wife are taken together, and an increasing burden is placed upon the combination,
whereas, if a man and woman live together unmarried they each bear a proportion of taxation which appertains to them. My hon. and gallant friend has pointed out the differentiation made in the case of the Death Duties compared with the Income Tax. It seems to me if the principle applied to the Death Duties is sound, it should be equally applicable to the Income Tax. There are many other aspects of the question. Why should there be this combination? Why should the incomes of the husband and the wife be united and treated as if they were common. Of course, if the purpose is to bring the income within the higher tax, and possibly the Super-tax, it means getting more money for the Treasury. But that is simply the argument of the burglar. There should be no serious difficulty in adjusting this matter. There is no equity, no fairness in combining the two sums in order to bring them within the limit which would involve the imposition of the higher rate of Income Tax. I do think that those invested with the regulation of taxation of the country should be able by the simple process of keeping two separate accounts and imposing the tax on each which is appropriate to that income, to avoid doing a real injustice to the parties, and thus creating an impediment to marriage. The people concerned might be induced to think it better to remain single. The whole argument is in favour of the encouragement of marriage, but this policy is directly contrary to it. The sooner this plan is adopted the sooner justice will be done to a very considerable class in this country.

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I am very glad my hon. Friend has brought forward this question, because really it is a much more important question than on the surface it would appear to be. In the first place, it seems to me the whole question; now is on a very different footing from what it was a few years ago. In 1913, when the Prime Minister was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he received a deputation on the subject, and on that occasion he said he would do his utmost to see that this grievance should he remedied as soon as possible. Since that date women practically have come into political equality with men. I really cannot see why one should differentiate between women and men with regard to what after all is perhaps, the most important tax imposed on the public. I do not know whether hon. Mem-
bers realise that it is not merely a question of a woman when she marries having to pay more Income Tax than she did before she was married. In certain cases neither a woman nor a man was liable to Income Tax before marriage, but on marriage they become liable to it. Take the case of a man and woman, both unmarried. Before marriage they had an income each of £129 per year, which was below the Income Tax limit. They had a total, therefore, of £258 on which they did not pay Income Tax, but on marriage what is the result? They get the relief of £120, plus £25—that is the allowance for the wife—and they have to pay on the residue of £113 to the extent of 3s. in the the £, which comes to £16 19s. 0d. The man and woman before marriage did not pay Income Tax at all, but by marriage they are penalised to the extent of nearly £17 a year. It seems to me a most monstrous anomaly, and there is no reason for it. My hon. Friend, in his answer today, said you could not disentangle the question of the tax on married couples from the rest of the Income Tax law. It is not only easily disentangled; it is not even entangled. This stands on its own basis. It is the one great anomaly of our Income Tax law in regard to married people. You have only to abolish it, treat the married woman like any other assessable person who is a taxable entity, and you have made the reform. My hon. Friend has made a great reputation in this House through his fair-mindedness and his statesmanship in the speeches he has made. I am quite serious when I say that if he could really have a talk with the Treasury officials, and could persuade them to carry out this reform he would greatly add to his reputation in the country in this respect. He would earn the gratitude of thousands of married women and thousands of families who are hard put to it now to make both ends meet. After all, these sums may seem very small to people who are well of for rich, but they mean a great deal to those who have very small incomes. I appeal to my hon. Friend, knowing him as I do, and as the House knows him as a fair-minded man, to approach the Treasury officials and do the utmost he can to remedy this grievance.

Mr. BALDWIN: I am not surprised that this subject should be raised, because it is one that has caused a good deal of interest amongst taxpayers for a great
many years, and, in common with many other anomalies, it is one that has been very tolerable so long as the Income Tax stood at 6d. in the pound, but which has become to many people intolerable now that we have an Income Tax of 6s. in the pound. I would say this to my hon. Friends: Of course they know quite well that I can give no undertaking. This is a matter within the authority of my chief, the Chancellor of the Exchequor, but I think I know what he would say if he were in my place this evening. I agree freely, as an individual and as a married man, that there is a great deal to be said for the case that has been presented to-night. It has always been an intolerable anomaly to feel that so far as taxation was concerned it would be cheaper to live with a woman who was not your wife than with a woman who was. That is an intolerable anomaly. I would, in passing, say that the argument of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chertsey (Mr. Macmaster) left me cold, because be said that the existence of this form of taxation would act as an impediment to marriage. Not at all. It might cause friction after marriage, but when a man is in that state of mind that he contemplates marriage, he regards any payment that he may make on behalf of the lady who is to become his wife, not as a, burden, but as an additional matter of pride and honour for him.
Let me remind my hon. Friends that this is not the only anomaly that has to be dealt with. There are others as great. There are problems much more difficult, which have been waiting for some years during the War to be investigated and reported upon by the Royal Commission. There are in businesses such questions as the allowances for depreciation and the allowances for wasting assets. There is one very great and striking anomaly which, owing to the increase in the incidence of the Income Tax. has attained very large proportions, and that is the question of the Double Income Tax, which is probably the thorniest of all the questions, and the most difficult of solution of any that the Royal Commission will have to decide. I see no hardship in those who suffer wheat they conceive to be this disability of having to wait, in common with thousands of their fellow-taxpayers, while this Commission reports. Women are represented on this Commission. My right hon. Friend will ask a lady admirably qualified for the pur-
pose to sit on the Commission, but I believe all the women can be brought before the Commission. Of course it is impossible for me to say how long it may be in reporting, but I should hope on some of the less complicated questions it may be possible to report in time for such alterations as might be deemed necessary to be made in the Budget of 1920.
I quite see that some hon. Members believe it would be a very simple thing to take out of the anomalous cases, which are numerous, this particular one, and deal with it by itself. But there is the difficulty. By doing that you would be pre-judging any conclusion that they may come to on the point. I have no idea what views the Royal Commission may take as to the incidence of the Income Tax as between married and single people and as between those who have families and those who have not. It may be—I have no knowledge on this, nor can I have—that they may make entirely novel suggestions for the application of this tax, and it may be that if the Chancellor were to attempt, in the Finance Bill which he will soon have to introduce, to deal piecemeal with one aspect of the problem, it might make the task of the Commission more difficult in coming to conclusions and making the recommendations that they may desire to make. I am afraid to-night, in the absence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I can say no more than that I have strong sympathy with the point hon. Members have raised but that I cannot hold out any hope that my right hon. Friend will consent to deal with this point piecemeal and in advance
of the findings of the Royal Commission, any more than he will take out any other anomaly to deal with in like manner. I can only suggest to my hon. Friends that they marshal their forces and present their case before the Royal Commission and press it upon its attention.

Sir FREDERICK YOUNG: I wish to associate myself with my hon. and gallant I Friend in his protest against this tax on respectability. While I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baldwin), the latter part of it left I me rather cold. The question of putting the Royal Commission to any inconvenience has no great bearing on the question Royal Commissions are established to work out difficult and intricate problems; which are difficult for the House as a House itself to settle, but this particular I question has only one phase with which even the hon. Member on the Treasury Bench has dealt, the injustice of it and I the impolitic nature of it. It is very disappointing that this matter, important in itself but trifling in its difficulties of solution, should be postponed and should have to take equal time with the other questions, which are questions of difficulty, which very properly are being left to the Royal Commission. And speaking as one who has had some experience in politics, I say that Royal Commissions do not issue their findings very quickly, so that those who are suffering from this injustice are likely to continue suffering for a considerable time.
Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-seven minutes after Eleven o'clock.